Black History That Everyone Should Know -- Print it out for your kids [age permitting]

Where are the apologies??

You shouldn't have to attend a primarily Black high school or college to receive the correct, factual, and historical events of the United States. United? Right ... or should I say White?! 

We teach kids sex education in middle school, but the truth about what's been done to Black people is not on the roster? Why not? Why is the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment not included in 8th grade science when STDs are in the sex education curriculum?

I'm goin to list all the Black historical events that I learned, mostly from a History Professor at Woodbury who was full-time at Cal Poly Pomona. 

Phillis Wheatley -- 1st published Black poet [why wasn't I taught this in high school?]

Although she was an enslaved person, Phillis Wheatley Peters was one of the best-known poets in pre-19th century America. Educated and enslaved in the household of prominent Boston commercialist John Wheatley, lionized in New England and England, with presses in both places publishing her poems, and paraded before the new republic’s political leadership and the old empire’s aristocracy, Wheatley was the abolitionists’ illustrative testimony that blacks could be both artistic and intellectual. Her name was a household word among literate colonists and her achievements a catalyst for the fledgling antislavery movement.

Wheatley was seized from Senegal/Gambia, West Africa, when she was about seven years old. She was transported to the Boston docks with a shipment of “refugee” slaves, who because of age or physical frailty were unsuited for rigorous labor in the West Indian and Southern colonies, the first ports of call after the Atlantic crossing. In the month of August 1761, “in want of a domestic,” Susanna Wheatley, wife of prominent Boston tailor John Wheatley, purchased “a slender, frail female child ... for a trifle” because the captain of the slave ship believed that the waif was terminally ill, and he wanted to gain at least a small profit before she died. A Wheatley relative later reported that the family surmised the girl—who was “of slender frame and evidently suffering from a change of climate,” nearly naked, with “no other covering than a quantity of dirty carpet about her”—to be “about seven years old ... from the circumstances of shedding her front teeth.”

After discovering the girl’s precociousness, the Wheatleys, including their son Nathaniel and their daughter Mary, did not entirely excuse Wheatley from her domestic duties but taught her to read and write. Soon she was immersed in the Bible, astronomy, geography, history, British literature (particularly John Milton and Alexander Pope), and the Greek and Latin classics of Virgil, Ovid, Terence, and Homer. In “To the University of Cambridge in New England” (probably the first poem she wrote but not published until 1773), Wheatley indicated that despite this exposure, rich and unusual for an American slave, her spirit yearned for the intellectual challenge of a more academic atmosphere.

Although scholars had generally believed that An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of that Celebrated Divine, and Eminent Servant of Jesus Christ, the Reverend and Learned George Whitefield ... (1770) was Wheatley’s first published poem, Carl Bridenbaugh revealed in 1969 that 13-year-old Wheatley—after hearing a miraculous saga of survival at sea—wrote “On Messrs. Hussey and Coffin,” a poem which was published on 21 December 1767 in the Newport, Rhode Island, Mercury. But it was the Whitefield elegy that brought Wheatley national renown. Published as a broadside and a pamphlet in Boston, Newport, and Philadelphia, the poem was published with Ebenezer Pemberton’s funeral sermon for Whitefield in London in 1771, bringing her international acclaim.

By the time she was 18, Wheatley had gathered a collection of 28 poems for which she, with the help of Mrs. Wheatley, ran advertisements for subscribers in Boston newspapers in February 1772. When the colonists were apparently unwilling to support literature by an African, she and the Wheatleys turned in frustration to London for a publisher. Wheatley had forwarded the Whitefield poem to Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, to whom Whitefield had been chaplain. A wealthy supporter of evangelical and abolitionist causes, the countess instructed bookseller Archibald Bell to begin correspondence with Wheatley in preparation for the book.

Wheatley, suffering from a chronic asthma condition and accompanied by Nathaniel, left for London on May 8, 1771. The now-celebrated poetess was welcomed by several dignitaries: abolitionists’ patron the Earl of Dartmouth, poet and activist Baron George Lyttleton, Sir Brook Watson (soon to be the Lord Mayor of London), philanthropist John Thorton, and Benjamin Franklin. While Wheatley was recrossing the Atlantic to reach Mrs. Wheatley, who, at the summer’s end, had become seriously ill, Bell was circulating the first edition of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), the first volume of poetry by an African American published in modern times.

Poems on Various Subjects revealed that Wheatley’s favorite poetic form was the couplet, both iambic pentameter and heroic. More than one-third of her canon is composed of elegies, poems on the deaths of noted persons, friends, or even strangers whose loved ones employed the poet. The poems that best demonstrate her abilities and are most often questioned by detractors are those that employ classical themes as well as techniques. In her epyllion “Niobe in Distress for Her Children Slain by Apollo, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book VI, and from a view of the Painting of Mr. Richard Wilson,” she not only translates Ovid but adds her own beautiful lines to extend the dramatic imagery. In “To Maecenas” she transforms Horace’s ode into a celebration of Christ.

In addition to classical and neoclassical techniques, Wheatley applied biblical symbolism to evangelize and to comment on slavery. For instance, “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” the best-known Wheatley poem, chides the Great Awakening audience to remember that Africans must be included in the Christian stream: “Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain, /May be refin’d and join th’ angelic train.” The remainder of Wheatley’s themes can be classified as celebrations of America. She was the first to applaud this nation as glorious “Columbia” and that in a letter to no less than the first president of the United States, George Washington, with whom she had corresponded and whom she was later privileged to meet. Her love of virgin America as well as her religious fervor is further suggested by the names of those colonial leaders who signed the attestation that appeared in some copies of Poems on Various Subjects to authenticate and support her work: Thomas Hutchinson, governor of Massachusetts; John Hancock; Andrew Oliver, lieutenant governor; James Bowdoin; and Reverend Mather Byles. Another fervent Wheatley supporter was Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Wheatley was manumitted some three months before Mrs. Wheatley died on March 3, 1774. Although many British editorials castigated the Wheatleys for keeping Wheatley in slavery while presenting her to London as the African genius, the family had provided an ambiguous haven for the poet. Wheatley was kept in a servant’s place—a respectable arm’s length from the Wheatleys’ genteel circles—but she had experienced neither slavery’s treacherous demands nor the harsh economic exclusions pervasive in a free-black existence. With the death of her benefactor, Wheatley slipped toward this tenuous life. Mary Wheatley and her father died in 1778; Nathaniel, who had married and moved to England, died in 1783. Throughout the lean years of the war and the following depression, the assault of these racial realities was more than her sickly body or aesthetic soul could withstand.

On April 1, 1778, despite the skepticism and disapproval of some of her closest friends, Wheatley married John Peters, whom she had known for some five years, and took his name. A free black, Peters evidently aspired to entrepreneurial and professional greatness. He is purported in various historical records to have called himself Dr. Peters, to have practiced law (perhaps as a free-lance advocate for hapless blacks), kept a grocery in Court Street, exchanged trade as a baker and a barber, and applied for a liquor license for a bar. Described by Merle A. Richmond as “a man of very handsome person and manners,” who “wore a wig, carried a cane, and quite acted out ‘the gentleman,’” Peters was also called “a remarkable specimen of his race, being a fluent writer, a ready speaker.” Peters’s ambitions cast him as “shiftless,” arrogant, and proud in the eyes of some reporters, but as a Black man in an era that valued only his brawn, Peters’s business acumen was simply not salable. Like many others who scattered throughout the Northeast to avoid the fighting during the Revolutionary War, the Peterses moved temporarily from Boston to Wilmington, Massachusetts, shortly after their marriage.

Merle A. Richmond points out that economic conditions in the colonies during and after the war were harsh, particularly for free blacks, who were unprepared to compete with whites in a stringent job market. These societal factors, rather than any refusal to work on Peters’s part, were perhaps most responsible for the newfound poverty that Wheatley Peters suffered in Wilmington and Boston, after they later returned there. Between 1779 and 1783, the couple may have had children (as many as three, though evidence of children is disputed), and Peters drifted further into penury, often leaving Wheatley Peters to fend for herself by working as a charwoman while he dodged creditors and tried to find employment.

During the first six weeks after their return to Boston, Wheatley Peters stayed with one of her nieces in a bombed-out mansion that was converted to a day school after the war. Peters then moved them into an apartment in a rundown section of Boston, where other Wheatley relatives soon found Wheatley Peters sick and destitute. As Margaretta Matilda Odell recalls, “She was herself suffering for want of attention, for many comforts, and that greatest of all comforts in sickness—cleanliness. She was reduced to a condition too loathsome to describe. ... In a filthy apartment, in an obscure part of the metropolis ... . The woman who had stood honored and respected in the presence of the wise and good ... was numbering the last hours of life in a state of the most abject misery, surrounded by all the emblems of a squalid poverty!”

Yet throughout these lean years, Wheatley Peters continued to write and publish her poems and to maintain, though on a much more limited scale, her international correspondence. She also felt that despite the poor economy, her American audience and certainly her evangelical friends would support a second volume of poetry. Between October and December 1779, with at least the partial motive of raising funds for her family, she ran six advertisements soliciting subscribers for “300 pages in Octavo,” a volume “Dedicated to the Right Hon. Benjamin Franklin, Esq.: One of the Ambassadors of the United States at the Court of France,” that would include 33 poems and 13 letters. As with Poems on Various Subjects, however, the American populace would not support one of its most noted poets. (The first American edition of this book was not published until two years after her death.) During the year of her death (1784), she was able to publish, under the name Phillis Peters, a masterful 64-line poem in a pamphlet entitled Liberty and Peace, which hailed America as “Columbia” victorious over “Britannia Law.” Proud of her nation’s intense struggle for freedom that, to her, bespoke an eternal spiritual greatness, Wheatley Peters ended the poem with a triumphant ring:

                    Britannia owns her Independent Reign,

                    Hibernia, Scotia, and the Realms of Spain;

                    And Great Germania’s ample Coast admires

                    The generous Spirit that Columbia fires.

                    Auspicious Heaven shall fill with fav’ring Gales,

                    Where e’er Columbia spreads her swelling Sails:

                    To every Realm shall Peace her Charms display,

                    And Heavenly Freedom spread her gold Ray.

On January 2 of that same year, she published An Elegy, Sacred to the Memory of that Great Divine, The Reverend and Learned Dr. Samuel Cooper, just a few days after the death of the Brattle Street church’s pastor. And, sadly, in September the “Poetical Essays” section of The Boston Magazine carried “To Mr. and Mrs.________, on the Death of their Infant Son,” which probably was a lamentation for the death of one of her own children and which certainly foreshadowed her death three months later.”

Phillis Wheatley Peters died, uncared for and alone. As Richmond concludes, with ample evidence, when she died on December 5, 1784, John Peters was incarcerated, “forced to relieve himself of debt by an imprisonment in the county jail.” Their last surviving child died in time to be buried with his mother, and, as Odell recalled, “A grandniece of Phillis’ benefactress, passing up Court Street, met the funeral of an adult and a child: a bystander informed her that they were bearing Phillis Wheatley to that silent mansion.”

Recent scholarship shows that Wheatley Peters wrote perhaps 145 poems (most of which would have been published if the encouragers she begged for had come forth to support the second volume), but this artistic heritage is now lost, probably abandoned during Peters’s quest for subsistence after her death. Of the numerous letters she wrote to national and international political and religious leaders, some two dozen notes and letters are extant. As an exhibition of African intelligence, exploitable by members of the enlightenment movement, by evangelical Christians, and by other abolitionists, she was perhaps recognized even more in England and Europe than in America. Early 20th-century critics of Black American literature were not very kind to Wheatley Peters because of her supposed lack of concern about slavery. She, however, did have a statement to make about the institution of slavery, and she made it to the most influential segment of 18th-century society—the institutional church. Two of the greatest influences on Phillis Wheatley Peter’s thought and poetry were the Bible and 18th-century evangelical Christianity; but until fairly recently her critics did not consider her use of biblical allusion nor its symbolic application as a statement against slavery. She often spoke in explicit biblical language designed to move church members to decisive action. For instance, these bold lines in her poetic eulogy to General David Wooster castigate patriots who confess Christianity yet oppress her people:

                    But how presumptuous shall we hope to find

                    Divine acceptance with the Almighty mind

                    While yet o deed ungenerous they disgrace

                    And hold in bondage Afric: blameless race

                    Let virtue reign and then accord our prayers

                    Be victory ours and generous freedom theirs.

And in an outspoken letter to the Reverend Samson Occom, written after Wheatley Peters was free and published repeatedly in Boston newspapers in 1774, she equates American slaveholding to that of pagan Egypt in ancient times: “Otherwise, perhaps, the Israelites had been less solicitous for their Freedom from Egyptian Slavery: I don’t say they would have been contented without it, by no Means, for in every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance; and by the Leave of our modern Egyptians I will assert that the same Principle lives in us.”

In the past decade, Wheatley scholars have uncovered poems, letters, and more facts about her life and her association with 18th-century Black abolitionists. They have also charted her notable use of classicism and have explicated the sociological intent of her biblical allusions. All this research and interpretation has proven Wheatley Peter’s disdain for the institution of slavery and her use of art to undermine its practice. Before the end of this century the full aesthetic, political, and religious implications of her art and even more salient facts about her life and works will surely be known and celebrated by all who study the 18th century and by all who revere this woman, a most important poet in the American literary canon. —Original by Sondra A. O’Neale, Emory University

Black Wall Street -- I have a degree in Business, but it was a police officer that told me about this.

The Devastation of Black Wall Street

Tulsa, Oklahoma. 1921. A wave of racial violence destroys an affluent African-American community, seen as a threat to white-dominated American capitalism.

In 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Greenwood District, known as Black Wall Street, was one of the most prosperous African-American communities in the United States. But on May 31 of that year, the Tulsa Tribune reported that a black man, Dick Rowland, attempted to rape a white woman, Sarah Page. Whites in the area refused to wait for the investigative process to play out, sparking two days of unprecedented racial violence. Thirty-five city blocks went up in flames, 300 people died, and 800 were injured. Defense of white female virtue was the expressed motivation for the collective racial violence.

Accounts vary on what happened between Page and Rowland in the elevator of the Drexel Building. Yet as a result of the Tulsa Tribune’s racially inflammatory report, black and white armed mobs arrived at the courthouse. Scuffles broke out, and shots were fired. Since the blacks were outnumbered, they headed back to Greenwood. But the enraged whites were not far behind, looting and burning businesses and homes along the way.

The state of Oklahoma had only two airports, yet six black families owned their own planes.

Nine thousand people became homeless, Josie Pickens writes in Ebony. This “modern, majestic, sophisticated, and unapologetically black” community boasted of “banks, hotels, cafés, clothiers, movie theaters, and contemporary homes.” Not to mention luxuries, such as “indoor plumbing and a remarkable school system that superiorly educated black children.” Undoubtedly, less fortunate white neighbors resented their upper-class lifestyle. As a result of a jealous desire “to put progressive, high-achieving African-Americans in their place,” a wave of domestic white terrorism caused black dispossession.

The creation of the powerful black community known as Black Wall Street was intentional. “In 1906, O.W. Gurley, a wealthy African-American from Arkansas, moved to Tulsa and purchased over 40 acres of land that he made sure was only sold to other African-Americans,” writes Christina Montford in the Atlanta Black Star. Gurley provided an opportunity for those migrating “from the harsh oppression of Mississippi.” The average income of black families in the area exceeded “what minimum wage is today.” As a result of segregation, a “dollar circulated 36 to 100 times” and remained in Greenwood “almost a year before leaving.” Even more impressive, at that time, the “state of Oklahoma had only two airports,” yet “six black families owned their own planes.”

Archer at Greenwood, facing north (Greenwood Chamber of Commerce).

These African-Americans’ economic status could not save them from the racial hostility of their day. Greenwood survivors recount disturbing details about what really happened that night. Eyewitnesses claim “the area was bombed with kerosene and/or nitroglycerin,” causing the inferno to rage more aggressively. Official accounts state that private planes “were on reconnaissance missions, they were surveying the area to see what happened.”

Despite all of the economic damage, Hannibal Johnson, author of Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District, explains that neither the survivors nor their families ever received the reparations suggested by the Tulsa Race Riot Commission. The commission recommended reparations for “people who lost property” and proposed “the establishment of a scholarship fund—that did happen, for a limited time.” The commission also proposed initiatives for the economic revitalization of the Greenwood community. Despite the tragic events, these grand ideas never manifested into a tangible reality.

Underlying Causes of the Massacre

In “The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921: Toward an Integrative Theory of Collective Violence,” the sociologist Chris M. Messer explores the underlying causes of the massacre. As a result of mass migrations to the area, driven in part by increased job opportunities, Tulsa became the city with the most African-Americans in the state. With a boom in the black population and their demands for equality, “perceptions of discrimination and shared experience among African-Americans…allowed for little time for adaptation among whites.” Tulsa’s rapid change in racial demographics made the city ripe for a riot motivated by white animosity against black economic progress. Whites of the era equated improvements in “wages and working conditions” as communistic threats. In essence, whites were resentful that blacks no longer passively accepted second-class citizenship in their own homeland.

Another structural factor that played a vital role in the Tulsa race riot was segregation. Ironically, black businesses benefited from self-sufficiency, which held both benefits and drawbacks for entrepreneurship. “Through maintenance of the legal separation of race in sociality, business, education, and residential areas, the structure of segregation encouraged initiative, but also placed parameters by restricting African-American opportunities,” Messer writes. In other words, since it was against the law for blacks to shop at white-owned stores, black businesses flourished. However, even though black businesses profited from how segregation reduced competition for black patrons, segregation also limited blacks’ mobility and opportunities to achieve outside their community.

The police disregarded due process, arresting blacks and interning them in detention camps; meanwhile, no whites were arrested.

According to Messer, the police force also contributed to the riot. Due to their ineffective leadership, they allowed mobs to gather at the courthouse for hours before seeking additional assistance. Furthermore, they actively participated in the riot by deputizing whites without discretion, arming them with guns to multiply the police force overnight. The police disregarded due process, arresting blacks and interning them in detention camps; meanwhile, no whites were arrested during the riot.

Both politicians and the media falsely framed the Tulsa riot as an uprising started by lawless blacks. Tulsa newspapers regularly referred to the Greenwood district as “Little Africa” and “n—–town.” African-Americans in the district were labeled “bad n—–s” who drank booze, took dope, and ran around with guns. Perhaps as a result of government officials’ stereotyping rhetoric and the media’s biased reporting, whites and blacks interpreted the racial violence differently. Generally, white politicians and residents perceived the black community “as predisposed to crime and in need of social control,” Messer explains. In other words, due to assumptions of black criminality, whites justified deadly violence on Black Wall Street, because blacks needed to be subjugated.

The Tulsa World newspaper inflamed the tensions between blacks and whites by suggesting that the Ku Klux Klan could “restore order in the community.” Since the KKK asserted white superiority with terroristic acts, such as lynchings, the mere suggestion from a mainstream newspaper that the KKK should intervene demonstrates how white supremacy was not only legitimized but also promoted with legal impunity. In the early 1900s, there was a rise in Black Nationalist organizations that refused to cower in the face of KKK violence or submit to societal subordination.

Whites responded to black pride and demands for equality with “social control, including segregation, lynchings, and pogroms,” Messer writes. In “Mass Media and Governmental Framing of Riots: The Case of Tulsa, 1921,” Messer and his colleague Patricia A. Bell offer further detail about how the media framed the riot, igniting tensions. In essence, blacks’ desire for socioeconomic progress and assertion of their rights was seen as a grave threat to white hegemony. Portraying all blacks as criminals served the black inferiority narrative, maintained Jim Crow segregation, and promoted the violent enforcement of racist ideology.

For instance, the racial framing of blacks as criminals legitimized whites’ congregation “at the courthouse and the subsequent destruction of the Greenwood area.” Consequently, it’s no surprise that blacks perceived the riot started by whites “as a massacre of their community.” The massacre of Black Wall Street primarily occurred due to whites “generalized perception that African-Americans were ‘out of line’” and needed to be put “back in their place.”

The Greenwood district offered proof that black entrepreneurs were capable of creating vast wealth.

Despite racial discrimination and Jim Crow segregation, the Greenwood district offered proof that black entrepreneurs were capable of creating vast wealth. Based on critical analysis of the events, Messer asserts “there is evidence that whites perceived African-Americans as an economic threat to the city.” For those who supported black subjugation, witnessing blacks thrive and defy the stereotypes of black inferiority was too much.

Soon after the riot, Walter F. White of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) visited Tulsa. According to him, black economic prosperity contributed to the destruction of the Greenwood District. White reported in The Nation how the city prospered under the oil boom. He stated that the town had grown from a population of 18,182 in 1910 to somewhere “between 90,000 to 100,000” residents by 1920. White claimed that the sudden wealth of the townspeople rivaled the “forty-niners” in California. However, when blacks experienced wealth, lower-class whites resented their success.

Many whites believed they were “members of a divinely ordered superior race.” Despite their inflated perceptions of themselves, there were three blacks in Oklahoma “worth a million dollars each.” A man named J.W. Thompson was worth $500,000. There were “a number of men and women worth $100,000; and many whose possessions” were “valued at $25,000 and $50,000 each. This was particularly true of Tulsa, where there were two colored men worth $150,000 each; two worth $100,000; three $50,000; and four who were assessed at $25,000.”

White concluded that many of the white pioneers in Oklahoma were former residents of “Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, [and] Texas.” Unfortunately, they failed to leave their “anti-Negro prejudices” behind in the Deep South. White had no positive words for Oklahoman whites. He considered them “[l]ethargic and unprogressive by nature, it sorely irks them to see Negroes making greater progress than they themselves are achieving.” In one instance, a white worker burned and demolished his black boss’s “printing plant with $25,000 worth of printing machinery in it.” In the process of leading the destructive mob, this disgruntled white employee was killed at the site.

The government and private industry worked in concert to bring down land prices and maintain white dominance in the Tulsa area.

The destruction of this successful African-American community was no accident. Messer asserts that “[t]he destruction of the community was rationalized as a necessary and natural response to put them back in their place.” Evidently, private industry and the state stood to benefit economically from the destruction. Two days after the riot, the mayor wasted no time in establishing the Reconstruction Committee to redesign the Greenwood District for industrial purposes. Blacks were offered below market value for their property. White men who offered “almost any price for their property” perceived survivors as desperate and destitute.

In essence, African-Americans posed a “geographical problem because their community was situated in an ideal location for business expansion.” The government and private industry worked in concert to bring down land prices and maintain white dominance in the Tulsa area. Poor whites’ resentment of successful, landowning blacks allowed elite whites to use them as pawns to obtain more land, wealth, and prosperity. Judging by the legal impunity granted to whites by law enforcement, the state endorsed and, in fact, supported the Tulsa riot for self-serving, capitalistic gains.

Historically, American capitalism has thrived with an elite few maintaining power and wealth. When blacks gain a strong foothold in a community or industry, they have the power to effect meaningful change. Thus, the socioeconomic progress of African-Americans on Black Wall Street threatened the power structure of white-dominated American capitalism. When white people destroyed black business establishments and homes, the façade of white superiority was maintained.

By the 1940s, the Greenwood District was rebuilt, but due to integration during the Civil Rights era, never regained as much prominence. The fate of Black Wall Street illustrates that as long as power remains in the hands of elite, mainly white families, America’s socioeconomic system can be marshalled to support and advance the tenets of white supremacy. Regardless of the progress made by prominent African-Americans, American capitalism is structured to keep a white segment of society ahead of the remaining marginalized many.

Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment -- 

The Tuskegee Timeline

In 1932, the USPHS, working with the Tuskegee Institute, began a study to record the natural history of syphilis. It was originally called the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” (now referred to as the “USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee”). The study initially involved 600 Black men – 399 with syphilis, 201 who did not have the disease. Participants’ informed consent was not collected. Researchers told the men they were being treated for “bad blood,” a local term used to describe several ailments, including syphilis, anemia, and fatigue. In exchange for taking part in the study, the men received free medical exams, free meals, and burial insurance.

By 1943, penicillin was the treatment of choice for syphilis and becoming widely available, but the participants in the study were not offered treatment.

In 1972, an Associated Press storyexternal icon about the study was published. As a result, the Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs appointed an Ad Hoc Advisory Panel to review the study. The advisory panel concludedpdf iconexternal icon that the study was “ethically unjustified”; that is, the “results [were] disproportionately meager compared with known risks to human subjects involved.” In October 1972, the panel advised stopping the study. A month later, the Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs announced the endexternal icon of the study. In March 1973, the panel also advised the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) (now known as the Department of Health and Human Services) to instruct the USPHS to provide all necessary medical care for the survivors of the study.1 The Tuskegee Health Benefit Program (THBP) was established to provide these services. In 1975, participants’ wives, widows and children were added to the program. In 1995, the program was expanded to include health, as well as medical, benefits. The last study participant died in January 2004. The last widow receiving THBP benefits died in January 2009. Participants’ children (10 at present) continue to receive medical and health benefits.

Later in 1973, a class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of the study participants and their families, resulting in a $10 million, out-of-court settlement in 1974.

On May 16, 1997, President Bill Clinton issued a formal Presidential Apologyexternal icon for the study.

Quilts with messages regarding the underground train --

Underground Railroad Quilt Codes: What We Know, What We Believe, and What Inspires Us

May 3, 2019 | Marie Claire Bryant | 

According to legend, a safe house along the Underground Railroad was often indicated by a quilt hanging from a clothesline or windowsill. These quilts were embedded with a kind of code, so that by reading the shapes and motifs sewn into the design, an enslaved person on the run could know the area’s immediate dangers or even where to head next.

Bow Tie = Dress in disguise to appear of a higher status

Bear Paw = Follow an animal trail through the mountains to find water and food

Log Cabin = Seek shelter now, the people here are safe to speak with

I can see the promise of such a system. Nimble fingers working in secret, armed with needle and thread, engaging with a visual language, doing their part for freedom. I want to believe it happened. Some do, and maybe it did, but others question the authenticity of such events.

Sharon Tindall is a Virginia-based quilter, educator, and one in a tradition of contemporary quilters who design textile works inspired by this “quilt code.”

“When I’m creating a quilt, I’m focused on the purpose of the quilt,” she says. “I’m thankful I am able to create something of comfort.”

Tindall hopes her handmade quilts hanging in the Johnson House, a crucial station on the Underground Railroad and now a National Historic Site in Philadelphia, embody the spirit of the house and the presence of those who passed through. Built in 1768 in the heart of Germantown, Johnson House’s woodwork, flooring, and glass are all original to the house.

“You really get a sense of enslaved people there,” she says. “I walked around where they slept, where they ate. You feel their presence. The slaves, the Johnson family who protected them, that presence was the colors in the sky of the quilt. I want to convey a message of hope, freedom, love for the slaves.”

Though not all of her quilts are coded, Tindall is a believer and defender of the codes. She recently gave a lecture about them to a full room in Johnson House. Our conversation stretched to weeks as I sought more detailed information about how they were used.

At its center, a quilt is an assemblage of historical and creative cues in the form of fabrics, shapes, symbols, textures and colors. Quilts were often made to commemorate important family events such as marriage, a birth, or moving to a new place. Often made from scraps of old dresses, burlap sacks, and dish cloths, it gives physical, even functional, form to a family or individual’s past and present. Tindall uses combinations of cottons, raw Dupioni silks, Swarovski crystals, natural fibers, Malian mud cloth, and even glitter to convey the spiritual, intangible components of her narrative compositions. For Tindall, the quilts become vehicles for the voices and footprints of people running for their lives.

“The orange is life, or light,” she explains, pointing at the glowing horizon line on her quilt, The Johnson House. “They could feel or sense light through their struggle of trying to get to freedom.”

Prior to 1999, the codes were unheard of even to the African American quilting community. That’s according to Marsha MacDowell, a quilt scholar and director of the Quilt Index, a massive online catalog of more than 90,000 quilts. In 1999, Jaqueline Tobin and Raymond G. Dobard published Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad , and the story cycloned through trusted centers of news and knowledge: the New York Times Book Review, NPR, and others. National Geographic and the Kennedy Center developed elementary school curricula that referenced the codes.

None of these institutions questioned the veracity of Tobin and Dobard’s story; instead, they published book reviews as human-interest pieces, calling it “captivating” and “fascinating,” and the public lapped it up like hard fact. When we see an uplifting story online, printed in Times New Roman, we tend to just accept it as truth. Soon the story has lifeblood independent of its origins, and there’s no stopping it.

“Almost every February, stories appear in papers across the country,” MacDowell explains, referencing African American History Month. “If you’re wondering about our irritation, I think it’s more frustrating that the codes keep getting presented as fact.”

That is to say, the authenticity of quilt codes is, among other things, a matter of emphasis. Maybe the protocols for experiences of belief versus fact are just different. When a person believes something, they have no need of proof. Not dates, examples, nor firsthand accounts. They don’t have to do anything except believe. For something to qualify as a fact, it needs evidence. To define “fact” is no easy undertaking.

Some historians float the issue that many of the quilt patterns cited as directives for enslaved peoples probably did not yet exist during the height of the Underground Railroad, between 1850 and 1860. Based on surveys of quilts made during these years, the evidence for some of these patterns just isn’t there, breaking the spell of this captivating story.

Drunkard’s Path = Zig-zag as you go along in case you are being stalked by hounds

Double Wedding Ring =Now it is safe to remove your chains and shackles

Sharon Tindall uses a historical pattern made up of triangles and rectangles called Flying Geese.

I asked Tindall what the Flying Geese quilt pattern meant and how it assisted runaways on the Underground Railroad.

“Flying geese are blue; the sky is blue, red and black,” she responded. “Follow the geese flying north. If the sky wasn’t clear, look for or listen to the geese flying north in the spring.”

I was disappointed by her answer because I didn’t understand. It came off like verse, or a nursery rhyme. Were they supposed to wait until spring if the sky wasn’t clear? Were they literally supposed to follow the geese? How could this interpretation of a quilt block have directed slaves hundreds of miles along a cruel course, across canyons and rivers, all the way to Pennsylvania, Ohio, or Indiana?

Whether or not you believe Tindall’s interpretation, you might agree her belief provides poetic justifications for belief versus fact. Quilts allow Tindall to sustain a conversation about these men and women who were valiant, who fought slavery by taking the ultimate chance—running, and maybe even trusting the message on a blanket when everything was at stake—and encouraging others to do the same.

“If people’s lives are at stake, then it stands to reason that there would be no trace of the quilts,” Atlanta-based quilt scholar Mary Twining-Baird argues. “Of course there is no documentation! Literally, if anyone found out they could lose their lives.”

Twining-Baird specializes in kente cloth quilts made on the Sea Island chain off the coast of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, but she maintains a firm stance on quilt codes.

 She encountered an old quilt that “was stitched like it had been sewn with a crowbar.”

“It was a map, of course! The wide woolen stitching lines were roads.”

Unfortunately, the quilt was lost in a flood and there are no pictures, which serves as logic for the general dearth of material evidence of quilts codes today. After all this time, they have been lost or have fallen to pieces.

For Tindall, a quilt can be like a prayer. The pretext for her belief in quilt codes is not unlike a person trying to explain or provide supporting evidence for a belief in God. Simply put, she has faith.

“I consider myself a Believer in Jesus Christ, woman of Faith, storyteller and a creator of quilts,” she wrote to me. “I have taken the gifts God has given me and I’m returning them back to Him through the quilt codes.”

Scholar Marilyn Motz has a definition for belief that seems to fit: “a process of knowing that is not subject to verification or measurement within the framework of a modern western scientific paradigm.”

As she points out, “the term belief actually calls into question its own validity.” And anyways, “we usually describe our own beliefs as knowledge.”

So, if we truly believe something, as Tindall believes that enslaved people running north were guided by the Flying Geese pattern in quilts, we may have trouble seeing the difference between belief and fact.

In every culture, there are beliefs, myths, urban legends, rumors, even conspiracy theories that rise to the status of sacred narrative whether or not they are “true.” In many cases of folklore, hard facts may not influence a belief. Such is the case with Kaluli people of Papua New Guinea, who believe the spirits of their dead take up in particular animals, namely pigs and birds. Should we be concerned with hard evidence the Kaluli can provide for these deep-rooted belief systems?

Stories, recipes, personal experiences, and all the things that were whispered to us when we were young often outweigh scientific fact. They matter because we believe them, so, naturally, and sometimes quickly, they become some of the disparate pieces of the systems that define us.

Regardless of the disputed history, it has been twenty years now that Tindall and other quilters have been making coded quilts: glimmering, spiritually charged, stop-you-in-your-tracks, hanging textiles based in deeply believed and debated historical events. Are these quilts harming anyone?

“The risk is that it is not a true story,” MacDowell says. “The danger is that you start questioning people’s belief systems and how they get their information.”

“I’ve found some people have a hard time thinking or believing anything they cannot see or touch,” Tindall says. “I simply ask them, ‘Do you think it’s possible?’ Nonverbal communication, symbols, and secrets are all forms of communication.”

Finally enslaved peoples were free to roam without running. Between 1910 and 1920, the African American population of Detroit, Michigan, increased by more than 600 percent. These Americans migrated to the Midwest from the rural South saying Godspeed! to segregation laws and seeking industry jobs during what is known as the Great Northern Migration, or the Black Migration. They carried with them quilts and the stories of an enslaved South.

While Tobin and Dobard were writing Hidden in Plain View in the late 1990s, MacDowell was in Michigan with a group of graduate students documenting African American quilts and recording stories. MacDowell’s team recorded almost fifty interviews. No one said anything about a code.

“One woman who was originally from South Carolina but lived in Detroit said she learned quilting as a child in South Carolina. Her mother taught her (as did her grandmother teach her mother) that you always hold a needle pointing in the direction of the North as you quilt it, because that is where opportunities are. Someone else we recorded said that her family hid important papers in the binding of the quilt.

“Now, I would not jump to any conclusions that every African American quilter held their needle pointing to the north, and that is the problem with the Hidden in Plain View book. They jumped to conclusions without documentation.”

MacDowell’s fellow quilt-scholars posited the subject of her whiteness. Was her whiteness a factor in not hearing that story?

“We had a whole battery of people who were doing those interviews in Michigan, both black and white, and no one heard that story.”

MacDowell has done the research. She knows how rampant the story of quilt codes has become. She especially knows that it’s out of her hands. While researching quilts in South Africa, she made the acquaintance of contemporary quilters who have—“lo and behold!”—caught wind of the book and started coding quilts of their own.

“There will always be people who believe,” she concedes.

Perhaps the code, true or not, is a vehicle for African Americans to explore the trauma they inherited—and the hope. Tindall shared her beliefs on a trip to Liberia, a West African nation originally founded as a colony by the American Colonization Society to repatriate freed and free-born black people from America. There she met weavers who were braiding in a code she herself is using. She felt a kind of kinship.

Nowadays, some African American women make coded quilts for their daughters and granddaughters, and that will keep happening. Whether or not the codes are “real,” Tobin and Dobard are responsible for a twenty-year tradition of craftsmanship that has cropped out of a confidence in what they wrote, in the codes. Now the lineage of artisans using quilt codes is robust. For them, the codes are poetry, healing, and, especially, a means of expressing history.

Marie Claire Bryant is a poet, storyteller, and archivist interning at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. She was previously the director of publishing for Cfile Foundation, where she wrote, edited, and published extensively on the topic of contemporary and historic ceramic arts.

Tuskegee Airmen --

The Tuskegee Airmen /tʌsˈkiːɡiː/[1] were a group of primarily African American military pilots (fighter and bomber) and airmen who fought in World War II. They formed the 332d Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group (Medium) of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). The name also applies to the navigators, bombardiers, mechanics, instructors, crew chiefs, nurses, cooks, and other support personnel. The Tuskegee airmen received praise for their excellent combat record earned while protecting American bombers from enemy fighters. The group was awarded three Distinguished Unit Citations.

All black military pilots who trained in the United States trained at Griel Field, Kennedy Field, Moton Field, Shorter Field, and the Tuskegee Army Air Fields.[2] They were educated at the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), located near Tuskegee, Alabama. Of the 922 pilots, five were Haitians from the Haitian Air Force and one pilot was from Trinidad.[3] It also included a Hispanic or Latino airman born in the Dominican Republic.[4]

The 99th Pursuit Squadron (later the 99th Fighter Squadron) was the first black flying squadron, and the first to deploy overseas (to North Africa in April 1943, and later to Sicily and other parts of Italy). The 332nd Fighter Group, which originally included the 100th, 301st and 302nd Fighter Squadrons, was the first black flying group. It deployed to Italy in early 1944. Although the 477th Bombardment Group trained with North American B-25 Mitchell bombers, they never served in combat. In June 1944, the 332nd Fighter Group began flying heavy bomber escort missions and, in July 1944, with the addition of the 99th Fighter Squadron, it had four fighter squadrons.

The 99th Fighter Squadron was initially equipped with Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter-bomber aircraft. The 332nd Fighter Group and its 100th, 301st and 302nd Fighter Squadrons were equipped for initial combat missions with Bell P-39 Airacobras (March 1944), later with Republic P-47 Thunderbolts (June–July 1944) and finally with the aircraft with which they became most commonly associated, the North American P-51 Mustang (July 1944). When the pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group painted the tails of their P-47s red, the nickname "Red Tails" was coined. The red markings that distinguished the Tuskegee Airmen included red bands on the noses of P-51s as well as a red rudder; the P-51B, C and D Mustangs flew with similar color schemes, with red propeller spinners, yellow wing bands and all-red tail surfaces.

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the United States Armed Forces. During World War II, black Americans in many U.S. states were still subject to the Jim Crow laws[N 1] and the American military was racially segregated, as was much of the federal government. The Tuskegee Airmen were subjected to discrimination, both within and outside of the army.

Black Civil War Soldiers --

As America’s Civil War raged, with the enslavement of millions of people hanging in the balance, African Americans didn’t just sit on the sidelines. Whether enslaved, escaped or born free, many sought to actively affect the outcome.

From fighting on bloody battlefields to espionage behind enemy lines; from daring escapes to political maneuvering; from saving wounded soldiers to teaching them how to read, these six African Americans fought courageously to abolish slavery and discrimination. In their own way, each changed the course of American history.

Harriet Tubman: Spy and Military Leader

Harriet Tubman, best known for her courage and acumen as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, led hundreds of enslaved men, women and children north to freedom through its carefully prescribed routes and network of safe houses. But once the Civil War started in 1861, Tubman used her skills as a spy and expedition leader for the Union Army.

In 1862, she traveled to a Union camp in South Carolina, to help formerly enslaved people who had taken refuge with Union troops, and to work as a cook and a nurse. But despite being unable to read herself, Tubman gathered intelligence for the Union army, organizing scouts to map territories and waterways and pinpoint the location of Confederate troops and ordnance.

In 1863, she became the first and only woman to lead a military expedition during the Civil War, to resounding success. Tubman led 150 soldiers on three federal gunboats up South Carolina’s Combahee River for a surprise attack on the plantations of prominent secessionists, using intelligence she gathered from enslaved people to bypass hidden confederate torpedoes. Along the route, they stopped at several spots to rescue more than 700 enslaved people. Between enabling such a massive escape and burning and pillaging plantations, Tubman’s expedition dealt a major military and psychological blow to the confederacy. About 100 of the Black men rescued that day joined the Union Army.

Tubman went on other expeditions and kept gathering intelligence. One Union general was reportedly reluctant to let Tubman leave South Carolina because "her services are too valuable to lose" as she was "able to get more intelligence than anybody else" from the newly free people.

Alexander Augusta: Pioneering War Doctor

With discrimination blocking his dreams of becoming a doctor in the United States, Alexander Augusta moved to Canada to earn his medical degree before returning to serve as the Union Army’s highest-ranking Black officer during the Civil War.

Born to free African American parents, Augusta worked as a barber in Baltimore while pursuing a medical education. Denied entry into the University of Pennsylvania, he studied privately with a faculty member until he married and moved to Toronto, Canada to obtain a degree from the University of Toronto in 1856. He then became head of the Toronto City Hospital.

A supporter of the American antislavery movement, he returned to Baltimore at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861 and wrote to President Abraham Lincoln, offering his services as a surgeon. He received a major’s commission as head surgeon in the 7th U.S. Colored Infantry, the Army’s first African American physician out of eight in the Union Army—and its highest-ranking African American officer.

His rank did not shield him from racism. He was physically attacked in Baltimore for wearing his officer’s uniform. Complaints from white subordinates led Lincoln to transfer him to run the local Freedmen’s Hospital in 1863.

After the war, he practiced medicine and became the first Black medical professor and one of the original faculty members of the new Medical College at Howard University, where he stayed until 1877.

The American Medical Association denied him recognition as a physician, but he encouraged young Black medical students to persevere in their dreams as he did. When he died in 1890, he was the first Black officer to be buried in the Arlington National Cemetery.

Abraham Galloway: Soldier, Spy and State Senator

Three years after escaping slavery in the cargo hold of a ship heading north, Abraham Galloway returned South to free more enslaved people, including a brazen incursion to free his mother. Fearless, fiery and tireless in his quest to better the lives of African Americans, it turned out Galloway was just the kind of master spy the Union forces needed.

Galloway posed as a slave to gather intelligence from confederate troops, set up a spy network in parts of the South and encouraged thousands of enslaved men who had sought protection behind Union lines to take up arms to gain their freedom. He helped raise three regiments of United States Colored Troops.

He never learned to read but used his powerful oratory and organizing skills to fight for Black people’s rights as citizens. Galloway was part of a delegation of five Southern Black leaders to the White House to demand that Lincoln support Black civil rights. He organized state and local chapters of the National Equal Rights League. And in September 1865, helped to lead a freed people’s convention.

In 1868, he became one of the first Black men elected to the North Carolina legislature, fighting violent voter suppression by the Ku Klux Klan in the process. Galloway, who faced numerous assassination threats, always had pistols at his waist and led an armed Black militia in Wilmington to counter the constant intimidation. He and two other Black men won election as state senators, while 18 Black men became representatives in the North Carolina General Assembly of 1868-1869. During his tenure, Galloway voted for the 14th and 15th amendments, granting citizenship and suffrage rights to Black men.

Frederick Douglass: Abolitionist Pushing for Black Recruitment

'Douglass Appealing to President Lincoln,' by William Edouard Scott, 1943, depicts Frederick Douglass as he petitions for the participation of African Americans in the Union Army during the US Civil War.

The Fair-Skinned Black Actress Who Refused to 'Pass' in 1930s Hollywood

Black Civil War Soldiers

By the time the Civil War began in 1861, Frederick Douglass was one of the most famous Black men in the United States—a prominent voice for freedom, human rights and social reform. An exceptional orator and writer whose autobiographies detailing his slavery and escape became bestsellers, Douglass was a national abolitionist leader who for some 20 years had the ear of the country’s leaders.

Early in the Civil War, Douglass clashed with President Abraham Lincoln for not allowing formerly enslaved people to enlist. Lincoln had been reluctant to arm Black men and allow them to serve in the Union military forces—in part due to racism and also for fear that outraged border states would join the secession, ensuring the Union’s loss. But as Union defeats mounted and manpower dwindled, Black men formed units of their own in the South in 1862. An official call to arms to Black men came in early 1863.

Douglass, with other prominent abolitionists, helped recruit Black soldiers for the Union. He traveled thousands of miles to recruitment meetings, lauding the benefits of service and ending many of his speeches by leading the audience in “John Brown’s Body,” a popular Union Army song. He published frequently on the topic in his newspaper Douglass Monthly, with articles and broadsides like “Men of Color to Arms!” and “Why Should a Colored Man Enlist?” 

Two of his sons, Charles and Lewis, were among the first to enlist in the famed 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, the second African American battalion that saw extensive service in the war, commanded by white officers. A third son, Frederick Jr., was recruited for the regiment like his father.

For Douglass, wearing the uniform of a soldier carried great symbolism of a man’s worthiness for freedom and a full slate of civil rights. “An eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and his bullets in his pockets,” Douglass said, “there is no power on earth…which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship in the United States.”

Robert Smalls: Sailor Turned Senator

Robert Smalls, a pilot who, on May 13, 1862, seized the CSS Planter from Charleston, South Carolina and delivered her to the United States Navy. 

Robert Smalls' daring escape from slavery into the hands of the Union Navy put him on a path to become the public face—and prominent recruiter—of Black sailors for the Union. He himself would parlay that into a successful political career.

Raised in slavery in South Carolina, the son of an unknown white man, Smalls gained experience as a rigger and sailor after his owners moved from Beaufort to the larger port city of Charleston, where he married Hannah Jones, an enslaved hotel maid.

When his attempts to buy his wife and family out of slavery failed, he plotted an escape. As the Civil War broke out, he became a deckhand on the Confederate supply ship the Planter and learned how to navigate between ports. Before dawn on May 13, 1862, as white officers and the crew slept, he slipped the Planter out of Charleston Harbor with eight men, five women and three children on board, chugging quietly from slavery toward freedom.

Ready to blow up the ship if caught, Smalls gave the right signals to pass five checkpoints (including Fort Sumter) and, once in open waters, raised a white bed sheet in surrender to the Union Navy blockade. He handed over the craft’s guns and ammunition, as well as documents detailing Confederate shipping routes, departure schedules and mine locations.

The daring escape helped encourage President Lincoln to authorize free Blacks to serve in the military. Congress awarded $1,500 to Smalls, who went on a speaking tour, recruiting Black men to serve. He also conducted 17 missions on the Planter and the ironclad USS Keokuk in and around Charleston.

Once commissioned as a brigadier general in the South Carolina militia, he ran a variety of businesses before launching into politics—as a member of both South Carolina’s House of Representatives and its state Senate. His term in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1874 to 1879 was marred when he was convicted of taking a $5,000 bribe while in the state Senate. Sentenced to three years in prison, he was pardoned before serving any time.

Susie King Taylor: Teacher and Battlefield Nurse

As a young enslaved girl, Susie King Taylor had been secretly taught to read and write. Her abilities proved invaluable to the Union Army as they began to form regiments of African American soldiers. Hired by the 1st South Carolina Volunteers as a laundress in 1862, her primary role was nurse to wounded soldiers.

Born into slavery in Georgia in 1848, Susan Baker King Taylor went to live with her free grandmother in Savannah where her secret education by teachers and tutors defied laws prohibiting formal education for African Americans.

After escaping slavery with her uncle and others, she joined hundreds of formerly enslaved refugees at Union-occupied St. Simons Island off Georgia’s southern coast. At just 14 years old, she became the first Black teacher to openly educate African Americans in Georgia.

She married Edward King, a Black officer in the 33rd United States Colored Infantry Regiment. When she wasn’t working as a nurse or laundress for them, she taught soldiers to read and write and “learned to handle a musket very well…and could shoot straight and often hit the target,” she wrote in her memoirs.

While working as a nurse at a hospital for African American soldiers in Beaumont, South Carolina, she met and worked with Clara Barton, the pioneering nurse and humanitarian who would establish the American Red Cross. After the war, Taylor and her husband moved to Savannah and opened a school for African American children in 1866. When he died and the school failed, she took a job as a domestic servant with a wealthy family, with whom she moved to Boston.

In 1902, Taylor became the first and only African American woman to write a memoir about her experiences in the Civil War, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers. She wrote of the persistent racism decades after the conflict but reflected on a glorious time of the fight for freedom.

White Planation Owners [yep one in my family; how I'm related to Booker T. Washington]

The American Yawp Reader

Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery in North Carolina. After escaping to New York, Jacobs eventually wrote a narrative of her enslavement under the pseudonym of Linda Brent. In this excerpt Jacobs explains her experience struggling with sexual assault from her enslaver.  

The secrets of slavery are concealed like those of the Inquisition. My master was, to my knowledge, the father of eleven slaves. But did the mothers dare to tell who was the father of their children? Did the other slaves dare to allude to it, except in whispers among themselves? No, indeed! They knew too well the terrible consequences.

My grandmother could not avoid seeing things which excited her suspicions. She was uneasy about me, and tried various ways to buy me; but the never-changing answer was always repeated: “Linda does not belong to me. She is my daughter’s property, and I have no legal right to sell her.” The conscientious man! He was too scrupulous to sell me; but he had no scruples whatever about committing a much greater wrong against the helpless young girl placed under his guardianship, as his daughter’s property. Sometimes my persecutor would ask me whether I would like to be sold. I told him I would rather be sold to any body than to lead such a life as I did. On such occasions he would assume the air of a very injured individual, and reproach me for my ingratitude. “Did I not take you into the house, and make you the companion of my own children?” he would say. “Have I ever treated you like a negro? I have never allowed you to be punished, not even to please your mistress. And this is the recompense I get, you ungrateful girl!” I answered that he had reasons of his own for screening me from punishment, and that the course he pursued made my mistress hate me and persecute me. If I wept, he would say, “Poor child! Don’t cry! don’t cry! I will make peace for you with your mistress. Only let me arrange matters in my own way. Poor, foolish girl! you don’t know what is for your own good. I would cherish you. I would make a lady of you. Now go, and think of all I have promised you.”

I did think of it.

Reader, I draw no imaginary pictures of southern homes. I am telling you the plain truth. Yet when victims make their escape from this wild beast of Slavery, northerners consent to act the part of bloodhounds, and hunt the poor fugitive back into his den, “full of dead men’s bones, and all uncleanness.” Nay, more, they are not only willing, but proud, to give their daughters in marriage to slaveholders. The poor girls have romantic notions of a sunny clime, and of the flowering vines that all the year round shade a happy home. To what disappointments are they destined! The young wife soon learns that the husband in whose hands she has placed her happiness pays no regard to his marriage vows. Children of every shade of complexion play with her own fair babies, and too well she knows that they are born unto him of his own household. Jealousy and hatred enter the flowery home, and it is ravaged of its loveliness.

Southern women often marry a man knowing that he is the father of many little slaves. They do not trouble themselves about it. They regard such children as property, as marketable as the pigs on the plantation; and it is seldom that they do not make them aware of this by passing them into the slave-trader’s hands as soon as possible, and thus getting them out of their sight. I am glad to say there are some honorable exceptions.

I have myself known two southern wives who exhorted their husbands to free those slaves towards whom they stood in a “parental relation;” and their request was granted. These husbands blushed before the superior nobleness of their wives’ natures. Though they had only counseled them to do that which it was their duty to do, it commanded their respect, and rendered their conduct more exemplary. Concealment was at an end, and confidence took the place of distrust.

Though this bad institution deadens the moral sense, even in white women, to a fearful extent, it is not altogether extinct. I have heard southern ladies say of Mr. Such a one, “He not only thinks it no disgrace to be the father of those little niggers, but he is not ashamed to call himself their master. I declare, such things ought not to be tolerated in any decent society!”

Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Boston: 1861), 55-57.

Available through Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Rock and Roll greats, in the 60s & 70s are influenced by --

MOST INFLUENTIAL BLACK MUSICIANS: 30 GREAT ARTISTS WHO CHANGED MUSIC

From Aretha Franklin to Prince and Miles Davis, the most influential Black musicians of all time have made the music world what it is today.

The roots of pop, jazz, soul, R&B, hip-hop, gospel, house, folk and disco music can all be traced to Black musicians. So many of today’s most popular genres, trends and artists just wouldn’t exist without the work of the most influential Black musicians of the 20th century, all of whom helped lay the groundwork for music as we know and love it today.

This list of the 30 most influential Black musicians of all time ranges from Aretha Franklin to Prince and Miles Davis, but it is just a small selection of the hundreds of Black artists, singers, musicians and producers who have shaped popular culture.

LISTEN TO OUR BLACK HISTORY MONTH PLAYLIST HERE, AND CHECK OUT OUR LIST OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BLACK MUSICIANS, BELOW.

30: FRANKIE KNUCKLES (1955-2014)

New York City native and Chicago house legend Frankie Knuckles is often referred to as The Godfather Of House Music – a big title, but one that highlights the impact of his career. His production techniques and use of “peaks and valleys” helped influence the EDM scene as well as all subgenres of electronic music while also influencing pop acts such as Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. Knuckles passed away in 2014, but he remains an underappreciated influence not just on electronic music, but also on popular music as we know it today.

Must hear: Frankie Knuckles Presents Your Love

29: TINA TURNER (1939-)

In a lifetime in music, Tina Turner has been there, done that, got the stiletto heels. But while her triumphant-tragic-triumphant story is often told, and her voice is known the world over, it’s still not entirely appreciated just how much she did for music in another way. In the 60s, when Black female musicians were often regarded as trivial artists or as vocal decoration for other (usually less talented) singers, Tina stood out as a figure with power, becoming both the first female and the first Black artist featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Her command of the stage, as well as her vocal art, made her a formidable presence, and her strutting dancing was legendary. But she was not entirely thought of as a soul singer, soulful though she was: Tina rocked. So when The Who and director Ken Russell sought an Acid Queen for the movie version of Tommy, Turner was the perfect choice: sassy, tough and assertive. She helped teach Mick Jagger to dance, showing him how to move for the 60s dance The Pony; Jagger learned well, accepting this memo from Turner with good grace, admitting he was knocked out when he first saw The Ike And Tina Turner Revue live in the US. Vocally, she held sway over Janis Joplin and Fantasia, and her uncompromising, in-control stage presence gave a template to Beyoncé. Even Lady Gaga and Madonna’s legs-akimbo moves owe something to the “Queen Of Rock’n’Roll”. For further evidence of her status as one of the most influential Black musicians in history, just turn to her signature anthem, The Best: adopted by President Biden for his acceptance speech, it was also used throughout Schitt’s Creek, becoming an LGBTQ+ anthem in the process.

Must hear: The Best

28: ELLA FITZGERALD (1917-1996)

With the nicknames Queen Of Jazz and The First Lady Of Song, Ella Fitzgerald is among the most influential Black musicians of jazz’s golden age. Born in 1917, Fitzgerald made her start touring with the famous Chick Webb Orchestra, with whom she made a name for herself before going solo. Fitzgerald was one of the first female jazz artists to break through in America, and hits such as Dream A Little Dream Of Me and It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing) are timeless classics. During her career she collaborated with the likes of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, and her music has influenced 21st-century singers, Lana Del Rey, Lady Gaga and Adele among them.

Must hear: It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)

27: BIG JOE TURNER (1911-1985)

Big Joe Turner was famous from the 30s to the 70s, yet he is largely forgotten today. What did this hero do? He started rock’n’roll. Turner was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and sang for pennies on street corners as a child. In his teens he earned a living as a bartender, singing behind the counter in nightclubs. These places were noisy, and Turner had to develop a loud voice just to be heard. He retained this skill and frequently didn’t bother with a mic on stage: he could be heard anyway. Other singers, notably Al Green, adopted this as a stage trick, further cementing Turner’s place among the most influential Black musicians of all time.

Teamed with boogie-woogie pianist Pete Johnson, Turner played all-nighters in his hometown before being given a showcase at Carnegie Hall, in New York City, in 1938, where he rocked a white audience who’d never seen the real-deal blues before. Hit records followed, such as Cherry Red, Me And Piney Brown and Roll ’Em Pete – all landmarks. His take of Around The Clock Blues made a Wynonie Harris song raunchier, influencing Chuck Berry’s Reelin’ And Rockin’ and numerous similar records. Turner shouted the blues with Count Basie’s band and Jay McShann, and his witty ways were a big influence on the king of jumpin’ jive, Louis Jordan.

Turner joined Atlantic Records in 1951 and hit with Honey Hush and, in 1954, Shake Rattle And Roll. The latter was one of the foundation stones of rock’n’roll, cleaned up for airplay in a version by Bill Haley, and then recorded more authentically by Elvis Presley; Buddy Holly was another fan. Big Joe Turner boasted that he never changed, yet as music shifted from blues shouting to boogie-woogie to swing to R&B to rock’n’roll – developments partly of his making – this huge, amiable figure still thrived. As he sang in Honey Hush: he let it roll like a big wheel.

Must hear: Shake, Rattle And Roll

26: SAM COOKE (1931-1964)

Hailed as The King Of Soul, Sam Cooke was one of the first music superstars, his remarkable vocal performances helping to move soul music into the mainstream. Cooke would inspire many acts during his career, including the likes of Al Green, Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder. Today he is perhaps best known for his powerful song A Change Is Gonna Come: first released in 1964, it became one of the defining tracks of the civil-rights movement in the US and has inspired covers by everyone from Otis Redding to Aretha Franklin, including a version by UK soul singer Mica Paris on her 2020 album, Gospel.

Must hear: A Change Is Gonna Come

25: SYLVIA ROBINSON (1935-2011)

If Sylvia Robinson had been just a singer, she would still be remembered as one of the most influential Black musicians of all time. But as a writer, label-owner, producer and talent-spotter, she was a (largely unsung) genius. Sylvia was born in Harlem, New York City, in 1935, and began her recording career as Little Sylvia in 1950. She formed a duo, Mickey & Sylvia, with the dazzling guitarist-vocalist Mickey Baker, hitting big with the exotic R&B tune Love Is Strange. In 1961, Sylvia played guitar on Ike And Tina Turner’s It’s Gonna Work Out Fine, and married Joe Robinson three years later. In the mid-60s they opened a record label, All Platinum, releasing soul, jazz and R&B on an array of imprints, and made a key signing in 1968: classy vocal trio The Moments, who churned out hits for more than a decade.

While the All Platinum sound was often raw compared to that of the label’s more sophisticated rivals, such as Philadelphia International, the company hit with The Rimshots, Retta Young, Shirley & Company, Donny Elbert and Robinson herself, with 1973’s suggestive Pillow Talk, a likely inspiration for Donna Summer’s earliest hits. As the Black disco boom Robinson’s label helped create was swamped by bandwagon-climbers, All Platinum foundered. However, the wily entrepreneur noticed a trend in New York and created a company to capture it: Sugar Hill. It was the first label to seriously document a new music called hip-hop, bringing the world talents such as Sugarhill Gang, Grandmaster Flash And The Furious 5, female crew The Sequence and mixed-gender outfit Positive Force, and even laid the foundations for conscious rap through Melle Mel’s The Message. Sylvia’s contribution is often overlooked, but she did everything in US Black music for four decades. Without her foresight, would hip-hop have achieved its commercial potential?

Must hear: Next Time I See You

24: ORNETTE COLEMAN (1930-2015)

“He’s playing it all wrong.” He was – but that’s good. In the second half of the 50s, jazz was offered many interrelated styles: cool, hard bop, swing, traditional, Third Stream, soul jazz and modal. Many were delivered by artists who saw their work as a way to liberate their soul at a time when Black consciousness was growing in the face of racism. But these musical styles mostly stuck to rules of melody and rhythm. Then came alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman, who blew the doors wide open for free musical expression, creating a sound that really was liberated.

Coleman didn’t bother with chasing the chords from old Broadway songs to their conclusion, or verses and choruses, or even “heads” – opening themes that returned after several minutes of improvisation. His thing was to play as you felt it, though he did offer compositions, too, such as his classic Lonely Woman. He gathered like-minded brilliant young players such as cornet star Don Cherry (father of pop star Neneh Cherry) and bassist Charlie Haden, who helped Coleman deliver the sound in his mind. He stopped using a pianist, freeing his music from chordal restrictions. His third album, and first for Atlantic, 1959’s The Shape Of Jazz To Come, put Coleman at the forefront of free jazz by more or less inventing it.

Like his work or loathe it, all of jazz had an opinion about this comparative beginner. Further records, among them Change Of The Century and Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation, established Coleman as one of music’s greatest explorers, and they exerted a huge sway over hundreds of avant-garde improvisers, including Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor and John Coltrane, and also influenced rock musicians such as Lou Reed, The Stooges and MC5. Coleman showed that the limits to creativity were often self-imposed, and that freedom wasn’t only about physical conditions, it was also about how you chose to express yourself.

Must hear: Lonely Woman

23: CHARLIE PARKER (1920-1955)

“He’s playing it all wrong!” He wasn’t, but that was the cry of many jazz musicians when they first heard Charlie “Yardbird” Parker, the man who invented bebop and, therefore, modern jazz. The alto saxophonist grew up in Kansas City and played with swing and boogie bands, growing increasingly frustrated before he came up with a method of soloing that enabled him to use the 12-note chromatic scale, and realised this might deliver a different style of music. By the time the lightning-quick player was gigging at late-night dives in New York City in the early 40s, he was confounding the expectations of listeners. This was the birth of bebop.

Established musicians were baffled by what Parker played, but young guns such as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk understood perfectly. However, “Bird”, as he was known, was barely able to commit it to record until 1945, owing to a trade dispute which had ended recording sessions for three years. When they finally did appear, his releases for the Dial and Savoy labels became a sensation, and jazz fans divided into traditionalists and modernists as a result – a split that still resonates (even the youth cult called “mod” can be traced back to Parker’s modernism).

Parker’s playing influenced Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Coltrane, Miles, Lou Donaldson and almost all other modern jazz and funk musicians, whatever instrument they played (organ legend Jimmy Smith was a Parkerphile). Charlie Parker recast music in his image, but, beset by drug problems that led to harassment by the police, he died aged just 34, a genius who never received the reward he deserved, even if he was acclaimed. But musically, Bird lives…

Must hear: Scrapple From The Apple

22: NINA SIMONE (1933-2003)

Nina Simone brought warmth, intensity and emotion to every song that she sang during her time in the spotlight. Singles such as I Put A Spell On You and Feeling Good demonstrated her enchanting and soulful voice, which was ever present in the 40-plus years she was active. Though her contributions to music have sometimes been overshadowed by those from other iconic artists, her status as one of the most influential Black musicians in history is assured: female singers such as Beyoncé, Madonna and Sade have emphasised how much they have been influenced by Nina Simone, while rappers Kanye West, Jay-Z and Lil Wayne have often interpolated samples from Simone’s music into their songs.

Must hear: Mississippi Goddam

21: MARVIN GAYE (1939-1984)

Marvin Gaye is one of the true icons of the R&B scene. His classic 1973 album, Let’s Get It On, is filled with soulful rhythms, while 1971’s What’s Going On is an incredible work that continues to speak to political injustice. From questioning the American war in Vietnam (What’s Happening Brother) to discussing entrenched societal racism (Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)), the album’s influence on modern-day hip-hop artists like Common or Kendrick Lamar is clear to see, while the mid-2010s court case between Gaye’s estate and singer Robin Thicke became one of the biggest copyright lawsuits of recent years, further highlighting Marvin Gaye’s standing as one of the most influential Black musicians of all time.

Must hear: What’s Going On

20: BILLIE HOLIDAY (1915-1959)

Known as Lady Day, Billie Holiday was one of 20th-century music’s first icons. Holiday’s singing style was unique, as she treated her voice like an instrument, often changing the tempo and delivery of words to great effect. Strange Fruit, released in 1939, remains her best-known track and would become strongly connected to the civil-rights movement that followed in the decades after.

Must hear: Strange Fruit

19: GRANDMASTER FLASH (1958-)

It’s near impossible to spotlight just one single figure who revolutionised hip-hop music. DJs, rappers and producers like Dr Dre, The Notorious B.I.G., Tupac Shakur, Afrika Bambaataa and Rakim all deserve their dues for helping shape the genre into what it is today, but for the purposes of this list of the most influential Black musicians, we’re highlighting Joseph Saddler, more commonly known as Grandmaster Flash. His pioneering work in the 70s and 80s – which included inventing the scratching technique – helped lay the groundwork for all the hip-hop artists who followed. Featuring seven minutes of incredible rapping over a funk-infused beat, the 1982 cut The Message, released by Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five, remains one of the greatest hip-hop tracks of all time. And it had a message, too, pushing hip-hop into realms of social commentary. In 2007, the group became the first hip-hop collective to be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

Must hear: The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash And The Wheels Of Steel

18: GEORGE CLINTON (1941-)

There were tacit protocols for US Black music in the late 60s: artists had to be slick and sing soul or funk, ideally while wearing suits and dancing in a line. Romantic lyrics were acceptable, as was the occasional protest song, as long as it sounded like it was religious. There were exceptions, such as Sly And The Family Stone, but they were of mixed heritage and from San Francisco, where anything goes, baby; and Jimi Hendrix, who had to leave the US to win recognition. But when the Parliament and Funkadelic groups beamed down from planet Loose Booty in 1968, they laughed at such protocols. They’d tried that smooth shit already, it didn’t work. That they laughed was another taboo-breaker: music was meant to be serious because life was serious. But they mocked anything and everything. They were funky – at times earnest – but, as a bunch of Black hippies, they knew life was tilted against them, so how could they play by its rules?

At the heart of this rebel army was George Clinton, singer, barber, cosmic voyager – and an architect of the future of 70s Black music. It was an uphill struggle: though Funkadelic’s albums hit the soul charts as they built a grass-roots following, Parliament didn’t break big until 1975, and Funkadelic waited another three years for a huge chart album, One Nation Under A Groove. But they were already influential. A Clinton co-write, I’ll Bet You, was covered by Jackson 5 on the huge-selling ABC album, and Johnny Taylor hit with I Wanna Testify (also covered by Queen’s Roger Taylor). The Temptations’ shift into psychedelic soul was partly inspired by their producer Norman Whitfield’s fascination with Parliament when he saw them gigging in Detroit; McKinley Jackson’s Politicians was another band under Clinton and co’s influence.

The “Parliafunkadelicment Thang” proved it was cool for a Black funk group to explore the cosmos, and many others followed; Earth, Wind And Fire’s cosmic stage set was perhaps built to compete with Parliament’s. After the collapse of the P-Funk empire in 1981, Clinton had solo hits that explored electronic possibilities, then watched his work inspire hip-hop stars Digital Underground, Snoop Dogg and De La Soul. The guy is a mutha- and fatha-funker to thousands.

Must hear: Electro-Cuties

17: MICHAEL JACKSON (1958-2009)

One of the most influential Black musicians in any genre, Michael Jackson’s impact is undeniable – though his later career was dogged by controversy. Jackson started out with his brothers in the Motown act Jackson 5, before going solo and releasing timeless albums such as the R&B-infused Off The Wall and more traditional pop records the likes of Thriller and Bad. Throughout his life, Jackson was always at the forefront of musical trends, and he redefined the music video format with Thriller, which remains one of the best music videos of all time. His discography more than earns him the title of King Of Pop.

Must hear: Thriller

16: JIMI HENDRIX (1942-1970)

With his headline performance at 1969’s Woodstock Festival, Jimi Hendrix showed the whole world that he was one of the best guitarists of all time, cementing his place among the world’s most influential Black musicians in the process. His improvisational ability and pioneering studio techniques helped define psychedelic rock while also influencing the future of blues music. Songs such as Purple Haze and Hey Joe remain spellbinding listens; it is heartbreaking to think that his career lasted less than five years, due to his premature death, in 1970, aged 27.

Must hear: Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

15: BOB MARLEY (1945-1981)

Without a doubt the most famous reggae singer ever, Bob Marley took the world by storm in the 60s and 70s. As leader of The Wailers, his music was not just passionate, groove-filled and catchy to listen to, it also carried real-world messages. Such songs as Get Up, Stand Up and Redemption Song helped to spread a message of unity and peace in divided times, as Marley taught the world about the Rastafarian movement. Continuing to inspire generation after generation, they remain as relevant now as they did upon first release.

Must hear: Get Up, Stand Up

14: SMOKEY ROBINSON (1940-)

Everybody knows a Smokey Robinson song: My Girl, Tears Of A Clown, The Tracks Of My Tears, Who’s Lovin’ You… his songbook alone is enough for the Motown legend to find a place on this list of the most influential Black musicians of all time. His unique voice became a key part of the 60s pop revolution with The Miracles, and he was still enjoying huge hits into the 80s as a solo artist. He wrote for The Temptations, The Supremes, The Marvelettes, Marvin Gaye and Mary Wells, and cover versions of his compositions became hits for The Beatles, Otis Redding, Jackson 5, King Curtis and The (English) Beat, among others. Robinson also produced Kim Weston, Brenda Holloway, Chris Clark and most of the Motown artists mentioned above. His hit 1975 album, Quiet Storm, gave its name to an entire style of smooth soul built for mature late-night listening. Beyond this, there was one other aspect of Smokey’s amazing career that gave him unique control over his own music and that of others: he spent nearly 20 years as the Vice President of Motown Records while the label was still at its peak, putting a consummate artist at the heart of a success-obsessed business. Now that’s influence.

Must hear: Just My Soul Responding

13: U-ROY (1941-2021)

U-Roy (Ewart Beckford to his church-organist mother) was a founding father of reggae DJs – toasters, MCs, chatters, whatever you want to call them. That makes him a key figure in the birth of rap, even if rap didn’t really acknowledge this for years. There were reggae MCs (masters of ceremonies) on sound systems in Jamaica and the UK before U-Roy came along, but he expanded their art of speaking occasional lines of jive and one-word exhortations into another realm, chanting coherent, meaningful lyrics that entertained and informed the crowd.

U-Roy took the mic on several sound systems in Jamaica before becoming the main entertainer on King Tubby’s Home Town Hi-Fi circa 1968. Tubby’s had an electronically brilliant sound and an unmatched selection of exclusive music, and U-Roy’s articulate verses over other people’s records made it Jamaica’s most respected sound system of the late 60s. After several false starts on record, U-Roy arrived at Treasure Isle studio in 1970, where producer Duke Reid and engineer Byron Smith gave him free rein over some of the greatest reggae and rocksteady tracks ever recorded, resulting in a string of hits that ruled Jamaica’s charts across 1970 and 1971, among them Wake The Town, This Station Rule The Nation, Version Galore and Tom Drunk, and U-Roy’s classic debut album, Version Galore. Numerous other talented chatters emerged in his wake, such as Dennis Alcapone, I-Roy and Big Youth, free to do their thing after U-Roy’s breakthrough.

“Daddy U-Roy” was acknowledged as the pioneer by reggae fans, and continued to score success with albums produced by Prince Tony Robinson which saw release worldwide through the mid-70s. He founded his own sound system, Stur-Gav, and in the 80s and 90s saw second-generation Jamaicans in the US adapt his style to funky beats to create hip-hop, just as he inspired Jamaican MCs galore. His commitment to Rastafarianism made him one of the ambassadors for the faith concurrent with Bob Marley, with whom he worked, even if his superstardom remained at a grass-roots rather than a pop chart level.

Must hear: Wake The Town

12: PRINCE (1958-2016)

Prince is one of the most diverse artists the world has ever seen: his music flowed from pop to funk to soul to rock to R&B as he flawlessly merged genres in such iconic tracks as Purple Rain, 1999, Raspberry Beret and When Doves Cry. His incredible falsetto, flamboyant personality and unbelievable performances had a huge impact on the music scene, and, as one of the most influential Black musicians of the 80s, his influence can still be heard in all genres of music, including those he didn’t pioneer himself, like hip-hop.

Must hear: When Doves Cry

11: STEVIE WONDER (1950-)

Stevie Wonder is a one-of-a-kind musician. Despite losing his eyesight at a young age, by 13 he would become the youngest artist to top the Billboard charts, and he’s still creating brilliant music. Wonder was always on the cusp of the latest trends and music technology; performing almost as a one-man band, he was also one of the first musicians to experiment with sampling, synthesisers and vocoders. He has a talent for blending R&B, electronica, pop, soul, funk and jazz, and he even influenced hip-hop. Throughout his career he’s used his platform to support various important causes: he was one of the leading campaigners to make Martin Luther King, Jr,’s birthday a national holiday in the US, and in 2020 he released two politically charged singles in support of another wave of Black Lives Matter protests.

Must hear: Living For The City

10: MUDDY WATERS (1913-1983)

One of the most influential Black musicians in both the blues and rock’n’roll genres, Muddy Waters has been cited by Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC as a formative influence, while The Rolling Stones even named themselves after Waters’ 1950 track Rollin’ Stone. Hailed as The Father Of Modern Chicago Blues, Waters’ DNA can still be traced in modern rock music.

Must hear: Mannish Boy

9: NILE RODGERS (1952-)

There was hardly a hint that Nile Rodgers was going to become so influential when Chic hit with Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah) in 1977; it took some time for fans and critics to notice the disco group’s audio identity, which continued to inform the best Nile Rodgers songs throughout the decades that followed. Bernard Edwards’ imaginative bass grooves entwined with Rodgers’ skin-tight guitar patterns, underpinned by the John Bonham-influenced drums of drummer Tony Thompson, and, within a year, Chic were massive. Soon, Rodgers and Edwards were writing and producing for Sister Sledge (We Are Family), Sheila B Devotion (Spacer) and Norma Jean Wright (Saturday), and despite disputes over the album Diana with Diana Ross, it was a smash.

When Chic temporarily split, Rodgers remained an in-demand producer for everyone from David Bowie to Duran Duran, INXS, Madonna, Mick Jagger, Grace Jones, Sheena Easton and more, while the best Chic songs became a foundation stone for hip-hip just as they’d influenced Blondie (Rapture) and Queen (Another One Bites The Dust). Numerous serious health problems have dogged Rodgers over the years, and Edwards tragically died in 1996 while the pair were gigging in Japan, which affected Rodgers badly. Rodgers’ 2013 collaboration with Daft Punk led to several global hits, including the glorious Get Lucky, setting in stone Rodgers’ status as one of the most influential Black musicians of all time. The personification of positive vibes, he’s delivered good times to millions of people.

Must hear: Chic Cheer

8: MILES DAVIS (1926-1991)

Throughout a career that spanned five decades, Miles Davis was always at the forefront of jazz. In his early years, he collaborated with some of the founding fathers of bebop, such as Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie, but he always challenged his audience’s expectations. His 1959 album Kind Of Blue is essential, while other records, such as 1970’s Bitches Brew, helped birth the fusion genre. Hip-hop legends the likes of Madlib and The Notorious B.I.G. sampled him, while singers such as John Legend and Damon Albarn have emphasised Davis’ influence and inspiration.

Must hear: So What

7: ROBERT JOHNSON (1911-1938)

He cut only two albums’ worth of material, in an era before albums existed. For years, nobody knew what he looked like. His guitar playing could be rudimentary by modern standards, his voice was as raw as a lion’s breakfast, and even in his home territory of the Mississippi Delta, hardly anybody had heard of him during his lifetime. When talent scout John Hammond tried to give him a break with a Carnegie Hall booking, he was already dead, aged just 27, and we don’t really know what (or who) killed him. Much of his legend is merely mythical: could he really have made a pact with the devil in order to become a great bluesman? Yet Robert Johnson remains magnetic, and his songs echo down the decades. When the compilation album King Of The Delta Blues Singers was released in 1961, it was perfectly timed to attract the numerous young British musicians who were becoming interested in the blues. Eric Clapton was one; Keith Richards another; Robert Plant and Jimmy Page are devotees. Elmore James made Johnson’s Dust My Broom a standard, and Sweet Home Chicago, Crossroad Blues (aka Crossroads) and Love In Vain are staples of blues jams the world over. Hellhound On My Trail set a template for the bluesman as a hard-living, drifting, haunted lone wolf. Little wonder that Bob Dylan, another elusive figure, is an acolyte. Johnson’s dirt-road trail goes on, touching the world even though he had no clue how important he’d become.

Must hear: Cross Road Blues

6: LOUIS ARMSTRONG (1901-1971)

As one of the best-known jazz artists of all time, Louis Armstrong helped to change the world with his unique trumpet playing and voice. The fact he made a career for himself at a time when many white audiences weren’t open to listening to what was then termed “race music” ensures him his place among the most influential Black musicians of all time; hits like What A Wonderful World and Dream A Little Dream Of Me brought jazz into the mainstream and broke racial barriers.

Must hear: What A Wonderful World

5: ARETHA FRANKLIN (1942-2018)

When Aretha Franklin passed away, in 2018, the world lost a true legend of soul music. Such hits as Respect, (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman and I Say A Little Prayer, and albums the likes of I Never Loved A Man The Way I Loved You and Lady Soul helped make her name as one of the best 60s female singers, but only scratch the surface of an incredible discography that earns Franklin her place among the world’s most influential Black musicians. There was a strong connection to gospel music throughout her work, as her musical journey saw her start off singing in her father’s church and touring as part of his “gospel caravan”, but in her long and illustrious career, Franklin took her gospel roots and interpolated them into other genres, among them jazz, R&B, blues and even rock’n’roll. Her influence is clear to see not only in modern-day acts like Ariana Grande, who performed at the late soul icon’s funeral, but also in other genres like country music (Dolly Parton has highlighted how her own career was influenced by Franklin’s beautiful talents).

Must hear: I Say A Little Prayer

4: RAY CHARLES (1930-2004)

Brother Ray was a giant. Blind from childhood, the singer and piano player cut a swathe through rhythm’n’blues music in the 50s, was a founding father of soul and a pioneer as an African-American musician singing country music. He handled jazz and funk with ease, owned a record label in a period when few Black artists had a stake in the business, and his groups became a breeding ground for talent such as David “Fathead” Newman and Hank Crawford. His backing vocalists, The Raelettes, included noted female soul singers such as Margie Hendricks, Minnie Riperton, Mable John (the first female artist signed to Tamla Records) and Susaye Greene of The Supremes. But, above all else, Ray Charles became one of the most influential Black musicians to a whole host of future stars.

Ike And Tina Turner’s Ikettes were modelled on The Raelettes. Numerous UK and US acts covered Charles’ songs, with What’d I Say being adopted by Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, Bobby Darin, The Beatles, Eric Burdon And The Animals and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers – among others. Solomon Burke not only covered it, his own Everybody Needs Somebody To Love was likely written in order to make a similar gospel-styled impact. Similar responses met most of the other recordings that reliably stack up among the best Ray Charles songs, including Georgia On My Mind, I Got A Woman and Hit The Road Jack. Stevie Wonder, Van Morrison, Steve Winwood, Billy Joel and Roger Waters have all acknowledged a debt to the man rightfully nicknamed “The Genius”, who also took a stand for full integration at the venues he played, and set up charities for disabled kids. Ray Charles didn’t believe being born poor, Black and blind should hold him back. It didn’t.

Must hear: I Got A Woman

3: JAMES BROWN (1933-2006)

The Godfather Of Soul, aka Soul Brother No.1 and The Minister Of The New New Super Heavy Funk – if you listen to hit songs like Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine and Get Up Offa That Thing, the energy, excitement and passion within James Brown’s vocals is spectacular, and the music world has a lot to thank him for. Not only did he effectively singlehandedly invent funk, but his music became a crucial foundation stone in hip-hop. Brown helped to develop multiple genres and influenced countless musicians, but he also influenced the music world in other ways. He toured constantly throughout his life, bringing his high-octane stage presence to each and every show, as well as being the originator of many dance trends – he was doing the moonwalk years before by Michael Jackson.

Must hear: Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine

2: CHUCK BERRY (1926-2017)

Hits like Johnny B Goode, Maybellene and Roll Over Beethoven practically invented rock’n’roll, ensuring Chuck Berry would be forever remembered as one of the most influential Black musicians of all time. His guitar playing inspired some of the biggest names in music to pick up an axe and try to write a tune, and his songs were covered by the likes of Grateful Dead, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, The Beatles and David Bowie. Chuck Berry’s impact on music is undeniable.

Must hear: Johnny B Goode

1: LITTLE RICHARD (1932-2020)

Little Richard’s 1955 single Tutti Frutti was one of the very first tracks by a Black artist to break through racial barriers and succeed with white American audiences, as well as being successful in the UK. In a career that lasted over six decades, Little Richard (real name Richard Penniman) was cited by Paul McCartney as an influence on his singing voice, and inspired other pioneering rock’n’roll artists, among them like Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Elton John and Bob Dylan. Topping our list of the most influential Black musicians of all time, Little Richard was a true showman and an incredible musician who brought rock’n’roll to the masses, – as you’d expect from a man nicknamed, variously, The Originator and The Innovator.

How subtle racism effects Black health statistics -- 

Racism in healthcare: What you need to know

How racism impacts health

Pain treatment

Emergency care

Pregnancy and motherhood

Summary

Racial discrimination permeates the healthcare systems of many countries, including the United States. This has negative consequences for both patients and healthcare workers, leading to higher risks of illness and, in some cases, lower standards of care for people of color (POC).

The COVID-19 pandemic draws attention to this. A May 2020 study estimates that in the U. S., Black people were 3.57 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than white people. Similarly, the risk of death within the Latinx population was nearly twice that of the white population.

Data from other countries reveal the same problem. A 2020 report from Public Health England found that in England, COVID-19 death rates were higher among Black and Asian people than white people.

The report also found that healthcare workers from marginalized groups felt unable to voice their concerns about the lack of personal protective equipment and COVID-19 testing in the pandemic’s early stages.

This article explores how racism affects various aspects of U.S. healthcare, including pregnancy, emergency treatment, mental health treatment, and more.

How racism impacts health

Racism in healthcare can have dire consequences.

Racism has a profound impact on mental and physical health, and can make it more difficult for people to access healthcare services.

In 2015, the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)Trusted Source found numerous examples of health inequity for POC in the U.S., including:

Lower life expectancy: In 2014, Black males and females had lower average life expectancies than white males and females.

Higher blood pressure: Between 2013 and 2014, 42.4% of Black males had high blood pressure, compared to 30.2% in white males. During the same period, 44% of Black females also had this condition compared to 28% in white females.

Lower rates of influenza (flu) vaccination: Flu vaccines can save lives. However, in 2014, only 60% of Black and Latinx people aged 65 or over got a vaccination, compared to 70% of white and Asian people of the same age.

Strain on mental health: A 2015 reviewTrusted Source found that racism was strongly associated with mental health difficulties, contributing to stress, anxiety, and depression. This was especially true for Asian American and Latinx groups.

Some of these findings are influenced by racial inequality that exists outside of the healthcare system. For example, economic disparities between racial groups make it more difficult for some to get health insurance, preventing people from getting medical care.

In 2014, around 20% of Black adults could not access health insurance compared to 10% in white and Asian adults. For Latinx adults, this figure was 35%. A 2012 study also found that predominantly Black zip codes were 67% more likelyTrusted Source to have a shortage of primary care physicians (PCPs).

However, racism also exists within healthcare itself and can lead doctors to neglect, disbelieve, or actively discriminate against patients. The following sections look at specific ways of how this manifests.

Pain treatment

A 2016 study found many white medical students wrongly believe Black people have a higher pain tolerance than white people. Of all the participants, 73% held at least one false belief about the biological differences between races.

Examples of these beliefs include Black people having thicker skin, less sensitive nerve endings, or stronger immune systems. The researchers note these beliefs are centuries old, and that some 19th-century doctors used them to justify the inhumane treatment of slaves.

These myths still have an impact today. In a previous study, Black children with appendicitis were less likely to receive appropriate pain medication than white children. The same was true in research on people with recurring cancer.

Emergency care

In addition to the limited accessTrusted Source to trauma centers that people in predominantly Black areas have, evidence suggests racial bias may prevent POC from receiving emergency care.

For example, according to Frontiers in Pediatrics, doctors in emergency departments (EDs) are less likely to:

classify Black and Latinx children as requiring emergency care compared to white or Asian children

admit Black or Latinx children to the hospital after visiting the ED

order blood tests, CT scans, or X-rays for Black, Latinx, or Asian children compared to white children

This study did not look at the cause of these differences. However, the researchers say they cannot be explained by social, economic, or clinical factors that would change how doctors treat POC in emergencies.

Differences in emergency care also apply to adults. A 2020 study shows that between 2005 and 2016, medical professionals were 10% less likelyTrusted Source to admit Black patients to the hospital than white patients. It also suggests Black people were 1.26 times more likely to die in the ED or hospital.

Pregnancy

Racial disparities also affect the medical care of pregnant people and newborn babies.

The term “infant mortality” refers to the proportion of babies who die below the age of one compared to those that live. Organizations often use infant mortality to measure the success of postnatal healthcare.

Between 1999–2013, infant mortality tended to decrease in the U.S. However, there were still disparities between racial groups. The following 2013 data comes from the HHSTrusted Source:

Group Infant mortality

Black 11 in 1,000

Indigenous 8 in 1,000

White and Latinx 5 in 1,000

Asian or Pacific Islander 4 in 1,000

Black people also face higher risks during pregnancy. According to a 2019 studyTrusted Source, they are 3–4 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white people in the U.S.

Chronic illness

Chronic illnesses are long-term health conditions that can severely impact someone’s quality of life. Sometimes, they can cause disability and require ongoing medical care.

A 2019 study found that Black people aged 51–55 were 28% more likelyTrusted Source to already have a chronic illness compared to white people of the same age. The study also found that Latinx people of the same age accumulated chronic diseases faster than white people.

The researchers note numerous factors may affect this, such as chronic stress, chronic inflammation, lower rates of insurance coverage, and less access to quality healthcare or PCPs.

Mental health

According to Mental Health America (MHA), mental illness rates are roughly equivalent between some marginalized groups and white people. However, there are some significant areas of difference, such as:

Disability

Overall, Black people experience a disproportionate amount of disability from mental health conditions compared to white people. Depression in Black and Latinx people is also more likely to be persistent.

Schizophrenia

Black males are four times more likely to receive a schizophrenia diagnosis than white males. MHA suggests this is because clinicians can overlook the symptoms of depression and focus more on psychotic symptoms when treating Black people.

Addiction

Native and Indigenous Americans have the highest alcohol dependence rates out of any marginalized group. Conversely, Asian Americans may be under-diagnosed.

A 2016 study suggests doctors are less likely to diagnose alcohol addiction in Asian Americans compared to white people, despite having the same symptoms.

This may occur due to the “model minority” stereotype, which frames Asian Americans as successful and self-reliant. The implicit bias this creates may lead doctors to overlook signs that Asian American patients require help.

Summary

Many studies reveal racial disparities in how marginalized groups access and receive healthcare in the U.S. Sometimes, these disparities are related to socioeconomic inequality.

However, biases and stereotypes also have a serious impact on how doctors treat POC. This can lead to over- or under-diagnosis of certain conditions, a lack of proper pain management, and increased health risks, even when economic status is not a factor.

Black men on death row -- 54 percent of people wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in the United States are Black.

Voting test written to exclude Black voters -- 

Or this: “Write right from the left to the right as you see it spelled here.”

There was little room for befuddlement. 

The test was to be taken in 10 minutes flat, and a single wrong answer meant a failing grade.

Take the Impossible “Literacy” Test Louisiana Gave Black Voters in the 1960s

BY REBECCA ONION

JUNE 28, 2013 12:30 PM

The Vault is Slate’s new history blog. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @slatevault, and find us on Tumblr. Find out more about what this space is all about here.

This week’s Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder overturned Section 4(b) of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which mandated federal oversight of changes in voting procedure in jurisdictions that have a history of using a “test or device” to impede enfranchisement. Here is one example of such a test, used in Louisiana in 1964.

After the end of the Civil War, would-be black voters in the South faced an array of disproportionate barriers to enfranchisement. The literacy test—supposedly applicable to both white and black prospective voters who couldn’t prove a certain level of education but in actuality disproportionately administered to black voters—was a classic example of one of these barriers.

The website of the Civil Rights Movement Veterans, which collects materials related to civil rights, hosts a few samples of actual literacy tests used in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi during the 1950s and 1960s.

In many cases, people working within the movement collected these in order to use them in voter education, which is how we ended up with this documentary evidence. Update: This test—a word-processed transcript of an original—was linked to by Jeff Schwartz, who worked with the Congress of Racial Equality in Iberville and Tangipahoa Parishes in the summer of 1964. Schwartz wrote about his encounters with the test in this blog post.

Most of the tests collected here are a battery of trivia questions related to civic procedure and citizenship. (Two from the Alabama test: “Name the attorney general of the United States” and “Can you be imprisoned, under Alabama law, for a debt?”)

But this Louisiana “literacy” test, singular among its fellows, has nothing to do with citizenship. Designed to put the applicant through mental contortions, the test’s questions are often confusingly worded. If some of them seem unanswerable, that effect was intentional. The (white) registrar would be the ultimate judge of whether an answer was correct.

Try this one: “Write every other word in this first line and print every third word in same line (original type smaller and first line ended at comma) but capitalize the fifth word that you write.”  

My experiences in society -- That Black woman walking in the street. I know someone said something or gave her a look. 

What was done and said to Sgt. Childs & Motor Hensley; both police with BPD.

How about this? -- 

Aug 28, 2018 — A five-year-old girl banned from attending school in Jamaica unless she cut off her dreadlocks will now be allowed into class when school ...

And this? 

Bo Derek from the Movie 10 ... no XXs given from anyone

NWA & Literature -- People were beheaded for their religious views so people kept quiet. This practice gave way for literature and poetry so that views could be secretly shared and expressed. I've taken classes on this very subject. But then when NWA sang or rapped their music, as activists, they were frowned on. What the hell? So, it's okay for English authors but not Black ones? 

Look at these groups & then tell me the difference between NWA and other groups making political statements, talking about drugs, trashing women ... I'll be waiting. My ex can take my son to see Rolling Stones ... drugs & women, but I am publicly hung when I let Mallory listen to NWA with explanation who they are. The difference is that NWA are Black, plain and simple. No one said anything to Mike about Give me Shelter [rape] and Brown Sugar [raping Black slaves] and exposing those songs to Mack.

Bad Religion

Black 47

Black Flag

The Clash

Dead Kennedys

Dropkick Murphys

Green Day

Jefferson Airplane

Megadeth

Midnight Oil

N.W.A

Pearl Jam

Best protest songs

“Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday. ...

“We Shall Overcome” ...

“War” by Edwin Starr. ...

“Mississippi Goddam” by Nina Simone. ...

“The Times They Are a-Changin” by Bob Dylan. ...

“Get Up, Stand Up” by Bob Marley. ...

“Give Peace a Chance” by Plastic Ono Band. ...

“Sunday Bloody Sunday” by U2.

Black fashion -- COPIED; sign of flattery, but then why the racism and looking down on ... hair, nails, fashion, dance, music that has influenced us all

Things I've learned in the news in the past few years -- 

Twice on the Metrolink, several times on the bus ... get up and move or give that White look of disapproval, remarks from people I hear in day-to-day convos.

Ex: A Burbank bus driver stated that Black people are always asking for a free ride on the bus. Another resident [Oh yea, a close family friend of Burbank Police Dept's own Captain Cremins] said that Black Metro and Black Burbank bus drivers are partial to giving Black riders free rides.

Right! I've seen so many White men say, I don't have change for a $20 or I can't find my card or I left it at home, blah blah blah. Or how about those [cough cough] that use expired Access cards or borrow from their friends?

All BS stories, except the Black people I've seen ... I'm short of $$ today ... HONESTY! 

Life is expensive for all of us. Just remember who's being victimized for the color of their skin before you point your White finger at someone you don't even know, or know their story or the past 5 hours of their life!

People love Black athletes, but frown on Black men otherwise [Jesus Christ] how many times I've seen this in McDonald's --

My ex husband loved his Detroit Pistons and the Dodgers, but the first one in a convo to use the N word. I hear a few White men in McD's talk about sports but make BS remarks about Black people in general ... okay when they're making your touchdown though.

Black people overrepresented in homelessness and unemployment -- RACISM [journals to follow]

On the Persistence of the Black-White Unemployment Gap

The United States needs policies that challenge structural racism in order to close the persistent unemployment gap between African Americans and whites.

Due to restrictions within the U.S. labor market, African Americans have long been excluded from opportunities for upward mobility, stuck instead in low-wage occupations that do not offer the protections of labor laws, such as those focused on collective bargaining, overtime, and the minimum wage.1 Unsurprisingly, this history of structural racism has created gaps in labor market outcomes between African Americans and whites.

Between strides in civil rights legislation, desegregation of government, and increases in educational attainment, employment gaps should have narrowed by now, if not completely closed.

Since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics started collecting data on the African American unemployment rate in January 1972, this rate has more often than not been twice as high as the white unemployment rate.3 In fact, between January 1972 and December 2019, other than during the aftermaths of recessions, the African American unemployment rate has stayed at or above twice the white rate. The only time that the African American unemployment rate was significantly less than twice the white unemployment rate was during the Great Recession. The rate dropped after the recession’s start and lasted a few months after the technical end as the white rate increased. But even when the African American rate fell below double the white rate, it never fell very far, as African Americans experienced greater amounts of layoffs. Between January 1972 and December 2019, it never reached as low as 1 1/2 times the white rate.

A recent study by the Brookings Institution found that the unemployment rate is even worse in many majority-African American metro areas.4 For example, in Washington, D.C., the African American unemployment rate is six times higher than the white rate. And a 2019 Center for American Progress issue brief highlighted the fact that unemployment gaps between African Americans and whites occur across all demographic groups.5 For example, African Americans have higher unemployment rates across all educational attainment levels and age cohorts than whites, and African Americans who are veterans have a higher unemployment rate than white veterans—though this gap is smaller.

However, focusing on unemployment rates as a measure of economic progress has its pitfalls. For instance, the unemployment rate does not measure the strength of the labor market; strength is better illustrated through the share of workers employed in the population, or the employment-to-population ratio (EPOP). This issue brief’s analysis shows that the racial gap in EPOP is narrowing, which means that the labor market is tightening and, therefore, that the racial gap in unemployment should narrow as well, since there will be a larger pool of African American workers available for existing job openings. Yet given that the racial gap in unemployment has not narrowed—but rather persists—an alternative framework is needed to explain why.

This brief provides a framework in the form of solutions to narrow unemployment gaps between African Americans and whites. These solutions do not place the burden on individuals, but rather focus on the systems preventing African Americans from fully participating in the labor market. For example, one solution is to reduce racial disparities in the criminal justice system and provide opportunities for formerly incarcerated individuals. Another is to instill workforce development programs with equity initiatives in order to address structural barriers in the labor market. Finally, policymakers need to allocate more resources toward enforcing and strengthening existing civil rights laws. The unemployment gap between African Americans and whites has persisted for nearly 50 years; policymakers need to address it before the economy can ever truly be at full employment.

Measuring the labor market gaps between African Americans and whites

When talking about unemployment rates, it is important to consider different labor market variables, as the standard unemployment rate—known as U-3—does not provide the full picture. While this standard unemployment rate reports the number of people who are actively looking for work and do not have a job, it ignores individuals who are not actively looking for work. This population of “disconnected” individuals is important to monitor, as their lack of attachment to the labor market provides important information about the economy.

In comparison, the employment-to-population ratio measures the share of the population that is employed, avoiding the issue of who is counted in the labor force since it does not exclude individuals who are not actively looking for a job. Rather, it accounts for whether people are searching for jobs and can therefore be thought of as a measure of how well people can find jobs. Another helpful labor market measure is the labor force participation rate (LFPR), which calculates the share of the total population that is in the labor force. The LFPR illustrates the extent to which people are attached to the labor market or whether they have dropped out.

Figure 2 shows the 12-month moving averages of the differences in EPOP and LFPR between African Americans and whites, with increases indicating a widening racial gap.

The gaps in EPOP and LFPR have been falling following a post-recession peak in July 2011. While the racial gap in LFPR has nearly closed, over the past year the gap in EPOP has bottomed out at 2 percent. Given these decreases, especially with EPOP falling, it does not make sense for the unemployment rate for African Americans to continue to double the unemployment rate for whites.

One aspect that might be at issue is that EPOP and LFPR for the overall population have not fully recovered since the Great Recession. This means that not all of the individuals who dropped out of the labor force during the recession have returned. A working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research focused on the evidence for labor demand and labor supply effects, finding that imports from China and automation can explain some of the decline in EPOP on the labor demand side, while assistance programs such as Social Security Disability Insurance and Veteran Affairs Disability Compensation have had an effect, albeit smaller, on the labor supply side.6 While some have argued that the lower costs of leisure pursuits such as video games have played a part in depressing male labor force participation,7 the evidence does not support this theory—as those who exit the labor force do not have significantly stronger preferences for playing video games.8

Factors to consider to fully understand the gap

In a recent journal article, economists Ariel J. Binder and John Bound argue that in addition to automation, imports from China, and assistance programs, young men’s desire for employment has diminished due to falling marriage rates, while incarceration harms the feasibility of employment.9 These arguments are problematic, however, as they stem from a neoclassical framework that puts the onus of achieving positive outcomes on the individual and ignores structural factors—such as discrimination increasing one’s likelihood of being incarcerated—that limit the potential of individual achievement. This is particularly true for African Americans and other people of color.

A recent Federal Reserve working paper found that much of the gap in unemployment rates between African Americans and whites cannot be explained by common labor market factors such as age, education, geography, and marital status.10 The authors, however, caution against assuming that discrimination is the primary reason for the portion of the gap that is unexplained—not because it is not a factor, but rather because discrimination in many markets is likely at play in some variables already measured, including education and even marital status. For men, the Black-white unemployment gap is mostly due to high labor force exit rates for African Americans.

Mass incarceration plays a significant role in the lower labor force participation rate for African American men.11 African Americans are more likely to be incarcerated following an arrest than are white Americans, and formerly incarcerated individuals of all races experience difficulties in gaining employment.12 In spite of years of widespread agreement among researchers that incarceration is a profound factor in employment outcomes, employment statistics still do not gather data on incarceration, erasing a key structural factor.13

As discussed above, the LFPR and EPOP gaps are narrowing between African Americans and whites. Therefore, the fact that the unemployment gap persists speaks to structural barriers in the labor market that prevent African Americans from gaining employment at a rate similar to whites. Hiring discrimination is one of the primary structural barriers, as many employers exhibit and act upon biases against African Americans or other demographic groups. An extensive literature using field experiments to examine such bias finds evidence of hiring discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities.14 In addition, the mass incarceration of African Americans offers yet another example of structural barriers in the labor market.

Labor market policies need to focus on closing the unemployment gaps between whites and African Americans, rather than simply lowering unemployment. To accomplish this, solutions must focus on breaking down structural barriers.

Policy solutions

Discussions on closing unemployment gaps currently focus on the need for tight labor markets. Economists argue that as labor markets tighten, the number of people looking for jobs starts to decrease as more people become employed and, as a result, employers are forced to discriminate less to fill job openings.15 However, tightening labor markets is not a sustainable form of policy because it does not account for when the inevitable recession occurs. During a downturn, groups that have historically been excluded from labor markets tend to be the first people let go—and unemployment gaps continue to increase.16

Policymakers can take the following steps to truly address these unemployment gaps.

Institute equity initiatives as part of a workforce development strategy

More appropriate solutions focus on structural barriers rather than individual pathologies as a means to close unemployment gaps. An example of an individual pathology is the so-called skills gap, which posits that any gap in employment outcomes is due to an individual’s lack of job skills and, therefore, getting an education or completing an apprenticeship or job training program is all that is needed for employment. A recent CAP report on redesigning workforce development, however, argues that any workforce strategy that does not include equity initiatives will fail to close employment gaps.17 This is because such strategies do not account for systemic issues in the labor market that trap members of certain demographic groups in low-earning occupations or with employers who use discriminatory hiring practices.

The CAP report calls for the establishment of a national trust fund resourced through a small levy on large corporations. This fund would facilitate job training programs that are connected to high-quality jobs.18 Furthermore, an equity initiative such as a fair-chance hiring policy that includes record clearing would provide a pathway to employment for formerly incarcerated individuals.19

Reverse trends in mass incarceration

Another solution to close the gap between African Americans and whites in labor market outcomes would be to reverse the trends in mass incarceration—and to contend with the employer bias that makes it difficult for formerly incarcerated individuals to gain employment.

One such policy that would work toward this end is “ban the box,” which forbids employers from asking applicants about past involvement in the criminal justice system since employers could—and often do—use this information to discriminate against potential applicants. Thirty-five states, the District of Columbia, and more than 150 cities have implemented this policy.20 A recent Urban Institute study of early literature on ban the box found that evidence of its effectiveness is mixed but nonetheless called for policy reform beyond ban the box to tackle racial discrimination in hiring.21 The authors’ proposed reforms included expunging criminal record history, requiring “blind applications” that do not include any identifying information, and improving background check data to avoid mislabeling applicants as criminals.

Moreover, in a 2016 policy proposal for the Hamilton Project, economist Jennifer Doleac found that ban the box still leads to lower rates of hire for African Americans. Solutions outlined in her proposal included informing employers of the positive attributes of formerly incarcerated individuals and giving formerly incarcerated people the chance to acquire new skills.22

Yet while Doleac’s solutions may be helpful, they can only go so far, as they place the burden on the formerly incarcerated instead of addressing discrimination in the labor market. Policies that go further to address this structural racism—such as those outlined below—would be more effective.

Enforce employment anti-discrimination laws

Policymakers can also tackle structural racism by enforcing employment anti-discrimination laws. Vigorous enforcement of these laws was successful in closing labor market gaps during the 1970s,23 but since the 1980s, policymakers at the federal level have made a concerted effort to drain resources from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), diminishing its effectiveness. The EEOC has seen significant cuts in staff and resources since 1980.24 Increasing its budget and staff can address the commission’s large backlogs and reduce the time it takes for it to address claims.

State enforcement of anti-discrimination laws has also been lax. Many states have minimum employee thresholds that disproportionately affect African American workers; in these states, employers with fewer than 15 employees, for example, are not subject to civil rights laws and are therefore allowed to discriminate against certain groups of workers—namely, African Americans.

Other issues

This issue brief highlights important issues in racial unemployment gaps, but there are other issues that must be considered as well. Although this piece does not address gender, it is an important part of the debate. As policy experts Jocelyn Frye and Danyelle Solomon have previously written, African American women have a higher labor force participation rate than white women but are more likely to be in occupations with lower earnings.25 In addition, African American women are more likely to be breadwinners but face a higher financial burden than any other demographic group.26 Discussions of racial unemployment gaps must therefore include the gender differences within and across races to comprehensively address the issue.

Over the past four decades, women have become a larger part of the labor force yet still do not make up a significant share of higher-earning occupations.27 This leads to a second issue that future reforms must address: the earnings gap. The recovery since the Great Recession has mostly been in female-dominated occupations such as the education and health services sectors, but these occupations are generally lower paid than those dominated by men.28 However, African American men and women see the largest earnings gaps, as their earnings fall well behind those of their white counterparts and they are less likely to be in occupations with good benefits.29 In addition to unemployment gaps, policymakers must also address these earnings gaps.

Conclusion

Since the Great Recession, the U.S. economy has experienced the longest recovery on record. The primary measure of this recovery is the unemployment rate, which for African Americans has fallen from a high of 19.3 percent in March 2010 to a low of 5.1 percent in November 2019. While it is significant that unemployment for African Americans has fallen by so much, it is nonetheless concerning that the African American unemployment rate has remained twice as high as the white unemployment rate. Over the past 50 years, this has held true, showing that there are structural issues in the labor market that need to be addressed.

This brief offers two key takeaways. First, policymakers need to focus on racial gaps in the unemployment rate, rather than the unemployment level. Second, to close these gaps, policies need to focus on combating the structural barriers in the labor market. Enforcing civil rights laws, instituting equity initiatives as part of workforce development efforts, and pursuing criminal justice reform can help policymakers tackle these issues.

Policymakers should not be satisfied with a low African American unemployment rate if it continues to be twice as high as the white unemployment rate. These gaps signify structural issues in the labor market as well as lost potential output from productive workers. The solutions to close these gaps should not place the burden on these workers; instead, they need to target structural barriers preventing these workers from finding success in the labor market.