Above and to the right: Slaves working in a field

Left: An ad appealing to equality

BLACK HISTORY IN AMERICA

TRIBESMEN BEING CAPTURED IN AFRICATRIBESMEN BEING CAPTURED IN AFRICA

THE “MIDDLE PASSAGE”

Slave traders didn’t care about the safety or comfort of their ‘cargo’. Conditions were cramped, unsanitary and dangerous, as these abolitionist documents show.

Black Woman Being Sold at Auction in the USA

Right: Bill of Sale showing slave prices

SLAVE PEN where SLAVE PEN where slaves were held before slaves were held before auction. The open door auction. The open door shows an individual shows an individual cell.cell.

THE UNDERGROUND ‘RAILWAY’

Left: An Ad For the Return of a Runaway Slave

A FAMILY OF SLAVES

Babies and children were often removed from their parents and sold to another plantation. Wives and husbands were separated and resold. Families were divided up and sent many miles apart upon the death of the plantation owner.

BLACK SLAVE WORKS OUTSIDE OF PLANTATION DOOR

Ordinary farmers could only afford to live like this because slavery gave them free labour in the fields.

A LONG HARD DAY’S WORK

When slaves got home to their tiny shacks (see inset), they would often dream about long ago days when they were free in Africa.

The AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 1860-65

was fought at least in part because the North could no longer support slavery which was so important to the South. President Abraham Lincoln (right) announced the freeing of the slaves after the North won in the famous Emancipation Proclamation (below).

AFTER THE CIVIL WAR,

Black men were given 40 acres and a mule to begin farming. But life was not so easy. Many state governments did not honour the Emancipation Proclamation, nor did they make it possible for blacks to vote.

THE KU KLUX KLAN

A group of whites who did not support freedom for black people. They initially formed to pull pranks on blacks. By the 20th century, they were organized terror-ists who’d maim and kill blacks and others. They wore masks and hoods to hide their identity. EARLY POSTER SHOWING A

KKK Member SHAKING HANDS WITH A SOLDIER FROM THE SOUTH OVER THE HEADS OF TWO SUFFERING BLACKS

BLACKS IN WWI

Because black and white soldiers served side by side in World War I, blacks had a new sense of their right to freedom and equality after the war.

The N.A.A.C.P.

The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People was founded to seek new advantages for blacks and to protest any hate crimes and rights infringements. It served the chief civil rights organization until the power movements of the 60’s and 70’s.

Founder of the NAACP W.E. DuBois

It did not, however, recognize institutional discrimination soon enough and its desire to work within the white framework made it irrelevant later in the 20th century.

LYNCHING, 1930

A mob of 10,000 whites took sledgehammers to the county jailhouse doors to get at these two young blacks accused of raping a white girl; the girl’s uncle saved the life of a third by proclaiming the man’s innocence. (Hangings, beatings and mutilations were called the sentence of “Judge Lynch.”)

LYNCHINGS, BEATINGS, DRAGGINGS

Common ‘justice’ was meted out to blacks throughout the South with no white man ever punished.

Southern trees bear strange fruit,Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,Here is a strange and bitter crop.

SEGREGATION During all this time, in the Southern USA in particular, whites had been keeping blacks down by segregating them--separate (and inferior) schools, water fountains , washrooms. And they had to sit in the back of the bus.

ROSA PARKS, HEROINE

On Dec. 1, 1955, a young black woman named Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her seat to a white man and move to the back of the bus. Her defiance got her arrested

but . . .

. . . it also began

THE MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT

and the rise to national prominence of one of the greatest

civil rights leaders of the 20th century—

THE REVEREND MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr.

BROWN vs THE BOARD OF EDUCATION

In 1954, the Supreme Court of the USA passed a law ordering that schools be deseg-regated. But, even though National Guard officers accompanied nine black teenagers to Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the fall of 1957, they were not allowed in at first.

THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR JOBS AND FREEDOM

August 26, 1963

It was a major expression of resistance to the continuing inequality for blacks in the USA. Between 200,000 and 500,000 people came. There Martin Luther King gave his famous “I Have A Dream” speech. It led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

MALCOLM X (1925-1965)

Born Malcolm Little, he chose “X” as his legal last name because Little was a ‘slave name’. His family moved often, his father harassed by whites as an influential member of assorted civil rights networks. As a young man, Malcolm was arrested for petty theft and sent to penitentiary. This hardened his attitude to whites and police.

He was outspoken in his dislike of whites, whom he called ‘devils’, and, as a spokesman for the Nation of Islam in the 1960’s, he influenced a generation of young black men. He was assassinated in 1965.

THE BLACK PANTHERS

Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver

Tired of waiting for the Civil Rights movement to make a difference and shocked by the assassination of Malcolm X, Huey Newton founded the Black Panthers in 1966. They called for the immediate end of police harassment of blacks and began a breakfast program and a food bank for the poorest residents of Oakland, California.

But they attracted the attention of the FBI because the Panthers carried guns and were accompanied by burly bodyguards. Violence—implied and realized—was a part of their platform. By 1970, Newton, Cleaver and Seale had been arrested on various counts. Cleaver’s Soul on Ice is one of the most famous prison memoirs ever written.

TOP: Blank Panther militia garb

Above: The BLACK POWER salute

Right: Free Huey protesters

MOTOWN RECORDS

Between 1961 and 1971, Motown Records, owned by black entrepreneur Barry Gordy had 110 No. 1 hits, including songs by Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Gladys Knight and the Pips and the Jackson 5, all of whom he ‘discovered’.

Probably Motown’s greatest hit-making group of the era was Diana Ross and the Supremes, whose first hit was “Where Did Our Love Go?” (1964); they followed that with another 11 number one songs and their repertoire continues to be, after the Beatles’, one of North America’s most familiar. Truly a crossover act, they appeared 17 times on the usually all-white, middle-class, middle-aged-aimed Ed Sullivan Show throughout the 1960’s. The recent Broadway play and movie “Dream Girls” starring Beyonce and Jennifer Hudson was based on the Supremes’ story.

Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard: the original Supremes. On the right, in performance.

Above: Aretha Franklin sings “R_E_S_P_E_C_T”

BELOW: Little Stevie Wonder sings his hit “Fingertips (pt. 2)”

POPULAR CULTURE

But as much as anything else, popular culture was having the effect of breaking down racial barriers. From 1968-1971, NBC aired a sitcom called “Julia”, starring a black actress named Diahann Carroll as a single mom and the nurse/ assistant of a crotchety white doctor. Race was never mentioned. Her life was ordinary; her values were ordinary. She was accepted.

Clockwise: Gary Coleman; Sly and the Family Stone; Michael Jackson in the Jackson Five; Bill Cosby in the 60’s comedy-drama “I Spy”

ROOTS –TV Miniseries (1977)

Nearly half the nation — 100 million people — watched the finale of "Roots," the highest-rated show in TV history at the time. In the 12 hours of television that Alex Haley's ancestry-based novel was boiled down to, "Roots" broke through all kinds of mindsets: the way TV executives thought about black-oriented programming, the way history-based works could be presented, and perhaps most important — the way black people saw themselves and their country. The series became, for many, a source of empowerment. "It felt as if with each night of the series, the black community stood a little taller.”

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Author Alex Haley who researched his own origins; LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte, later “Toby”; family album photo of a man born a slave; white woman in front of a screen showing Kinte’s enslavement—whites were very affected by “Roots” as well

MOVIES In the 1970’s AND EARLY 80’s

Though there had been classic stories showing that whites could be kind to black people (like To Kill a Mockingbird, the book and movie), it wasn’t until the 70’s and 80’s that important, popular and prize-winning movies dealt regularly with the problem of race relations. Actor Sidney Poitier typified the strong, dignified black man who triumphs in movies such as “In the Heat of the Night” and “To Sir With Love”.

ABOVE and LEFT: Sidney Poitier hits from the 1970’s

Multiple Academy-Award-winning “Places in the Heart” (1984) showed how kind blacks could help out whites (though it didn’t shy away from the realities of race relations in the 1930’s). But for sheer ‘cool’ Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley in 1984’s “Beverly Hills Cop” set up the black man with whom whites wanted to identify.

SPORTS FIGURES

Though Jackie Robinson broke the ‘colour barrier’ to join the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1948, sports only began to be dominated by major black players in the 1970’s and 80’s: Reggie Jackson (1970’s-80’s) of the Yankees who is the only non-pitcher to win World Series MVP twice; Kareem Abdul Jabbar of the Lakers (1970’s) and Michael Jordan (80’s) of the Bulls.

CLOCKWISE from FAR LEFT: Jackie Robinson; Michael Jordan; Kareem Abdul Jabbar (Dr. J); Reggie Jackson

MUSIC AND POPULAR CULTURE

From Sam Cooke to Jimi Hendrix (50’s-60’s), black music had been important to a select set of listeners, but hip hop—at first very much a New York, black-culture music movement--became mainstream by the 1980’s and 90’s with Public Enemy, LL Cool J, M.C. Hammer and Fresh Prince AKA Will Smith, the actor (here with Oprah Winfrey).

OPRAH WINFREY (born 1954)

This powerhouse talk-show host and multi-media entrepreneur, worth an estimated $3.5 billion dollars, is often listed as the richest woman in America on the Forbes 400 survey. She is the only person in the world to have made the CNN-Time magazine’s Most Influential People of the Year list five times in a row. She has her own magazine (O), her own radio network (Oprah and Friends), as well as the most successful talk show in history, on air since 1984, where she can make a book into a bestseller by her recom-mendation alone.

She has been a successful actress (The Color Purple, Beloved) and has her own production company (HARPO—her name spelled backwards). She is also one of the most trusted people in America, according to polls.

In her new role as ‘king-maker’, she made a young senator from Illinois the one to beat for President in the fall of 2008 . . . .

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Oprah with the “Sex and the City” cast; the DVD cover of “Beloved”; with Barack Obama; Oprah at the Oscars

BARACK OBAMA (born 1961)

One of the most meaningful evidence of change: the Democratic candidate for the president of the United States in 2008 was the product of an interracial marriage—a white mother and a black father. Married to a fellow lawyer--also African American—Michelle Robinson Obama, they have two daughters. On the campaign trail, Michelle said, “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback."

And what followed on Nov. 4, 2008, was even more dramatic . . .

Above: Barack with Natasha

Above: Michelle with Malia

. . . when Barack Hussein Obama became the 44th President of the United States, winning 52% of the popular vote.

Below, at a rally in Chicago’s Grant Park that attracted over 100,000 celebrants, Obama gives his acceptance speech near midnight on Nov. 4th, 2008.

OBAMA TAKES HIS PLACE WITH THE OTHER AGENTS OF GREAT CHANGE FOR BLACKS IN AMERICA:

ON THE LEFT, Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks; ON THE RIGHT, Presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy

ON THE RIGHT, 103-year-old Amelia Boyton, who participated in the Montgomery march in 1965, is ecstatic, saying, “I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

Continuing Influences on Popular Culture

CLOCKWISE from RIGHT: Golf star Tiger Woods; Beyonce Knowles; Dave Chapelle; Tyra Banks; National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice; Tyler Perry; Kanye West; Nobel Prize winner for Literature (1988) Toni Morrison; Oscar winners (2002) Denzel Washington and Halle Berry

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/8914138#8914138

To access a 4-minute video from MSNBC on Rosa Parks and segregation, double-right-click on this address, choose “Open Hyperlink” and then shut down the slide show to free up RAM--