Maya Angelou shattered barriers as San Francisco’s first Black female streetcar conductor in the 1940s before becoming a famous orator, poet, author, and civil rights activist. She started the work when she was only 16 years old. She stated that she was desperate for the job since she “loved the clothes.” “On the streetcars, I … Read more
Muammar Gaddafi, Libya’s leader, came to power in a coup in 1969 and was deposed in 2011. While some believe that his leadership brought the country many socioeconomic advances, others accuse him of being a tyrant who controlled with an iron fist. On October 20, 2011, he was deposed after a multinational military invasion led … Read more
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also known as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, started in 1935 and lasted seven months, culminating in the military occupation of Ethiopia. Italy attempted an invasion of Ethiopia for the second time. Ethiopia was a sovereign nation with a robust army and a strong monarchy at the time, while the rest of … Read more
People were kidnapped from Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries put into slavery in the American colonies, and exploited to work as indentured servants and labor in the production of products like tobacco and cotton. By the mid-nineteenth century, America’s westward expansion and the abolitionist movement had sparked a national discussion about slavery that … Read more
Every year, World Freedom Day is commemorated to honor the essential principles of press freedom, to assess press freedom around the world, to defend the media against attacks, and to remember journalists who have died in the line of duty. Despite this, threats and violence against the media continue to rise, putting journalists’ lives in … Read more
From roughly 100 AD until 940 AD, the Kingdom of Aksum ruled throughout East Africa and beyond, including modern-day Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Sudan. Aksum, in the northern region of Tigray, served as Ethiopia’s capital until the seventh century CE. At its peak, the kingdom held territory stretching from southern Egypt to the Cushite Kingdom … Read more
It pains me to learn that few Americans can link Black material poverty to the country’s historical anti-Black objective, and few examples come to mind as clear as what occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma at the end of May 1921. The Tulsa race riot was a two-day bloodbath in which white mobs attacked and destroyed the … Read more