The race riot in Washington, D.C. was one of more than twenty that took place during the “Red Summer” of 1919. Lasting a total of only four days, this short-lived riot was more accurately described as a “race war” taking place in the nation’s capital. Continue reading Revisit: WASHINGTON, D.C. RACE RIOT (1919)
The California Fair Housing Act of 1963, better known as the Rumford Act (AB 1240) because of its sponsor, Assemblyman William Byron Rumford, was one of the most significant and sweeping laws protecting the rights of blacks and other people of color to purchase housing without being subjected to discrimination during the post-World War II period. It was enacted in in response to weaknesses in earlier fair housing legislation in California and evolved from a larger civil rights struggle that emerged over the movement to create a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) at the state level between 1946 and 1959. Continue reading Revisit: THE CALIFORNIA FAIR HOUSING ACT [THE RUMFORD ACT] (1963-1968)
The Port Royal Experiment, the first major attempt by Northerners to reconstruct the Southern political and economic system, began only seven months after the firing on Fort Sumter. On November 7, 1861 the Union Army occupied South Carolina’s Sea Islands, freeing approximately 10,000 slaves. As the Confederate Army and white plantation owners fled, Northerners began to capitalize on their possession of an area world famous for its cotton. During … Continue reading Revisit: PORT ROYAL EXPERIMENT (1862-1865)
In the late afternoon of May 1, 1866, long broiling tensions between the residents of southern Memphis, Tennessee erupted into a three day riot known as the Memphis Riot of 1866. The riot began when a white police officer attempted to arrest a black ex-soldier and an estimated fifty blacks showed up to stop the police from jailing him. Accounts vary as to who began the shooting, but the altercation that ensued quickly involved more and more of the city. The victims initially were only black soldiers, but the violence quickly spread to other blacks living just south of Memphis who were attacked while their homes, schools, and churches were destroyed. White Northerners who worked as missionaries and school teachers in black schools were also targeted.
Continue reading Revisit: MEMPHIS RIOT(1866)
Black Art Story 