Coast Guard Academy Honors Its First Black Graduate
In 1966, Merle Smith was the academy's first Black graduate. Today 5 percent of the cadets are Black.
University of Nebraska Scholars Debut New Online Archive Documenting Slavery in Washington, D.C.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has created an online project entitled Civil War Washington that contains paperwork filed by slaveowners in the District of Columbia in response to the Compensated Emancipation Act.
Mississippi University for Women Undertakes an Oral History of the Local Civil Rights Movement
Eleven students are conducting the interviews which will be digitally stored at the Columbus-Lowdnes Public Library.
LSU Students Investigate “Cold Case” Murders From the Civil Rights Era
As a result of their research, the students filed Freedom of Information Act requests seeking more than 30,000 pages of FBI investigation files.
Duke University Opens Exhibit on the History of the Portrayal of Africans Americans in...
The exhibit, entitled "From Blackface to Blaxploitation: Representations of African Americans in Film," will be shown through the end of July.
Wayne State University Law School Receives Papers of Congressman John Conyers
Representatives John Conyers, the former chair of the House Judiciary Committee, earned his law degree at Wayne State in 1958.
University of Mississippi Commemorates 50 Years of Racial Integration
Fifty years ago there were no Black students at Ole Miss. Today they make up 16 percent of the undergraduate student body.
Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia Opens at Ferris State University
The new $1.3 million, 3,300-square-foot museum's collection includes more than 9,000 artifacts.
New Online Archive of the Papers of the Founder of North Carolina Central University
James E. Shepard established the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua for the Colored Race. The first classes were held in 1910.
The University of Texas Arlington to Explore Its Racial History
The new Center for African American Studies will conduct an oral history project involving its earliest Black alumni.
Two Black Poets Honored by the U.S. Postal Service
Robert Hayden and Gwendolyn Brooks are among 10 poets honored in a new series of stamps.
Dickinson College Apologizes for 1940s Racial Slight
Patricia Shaw Iverson, the only daughter of the college's first Black woman alumna, was admitted to the college but was not permitted to live on campus.
Emory University Opens Its Archives of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The archive includes materials from 918 boxes documenting the activities of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference from 1968 to 2007.
Duke University Honors Its First Black Students
The scholarship fund was established with a $1 million gift from a White classmate of the five Black students who racially integrated Duke's undergraduate programs in 1963.
Vanderbilt Debuts Digital Archive of 1964 Taped Interviews of Leaders of the Civil Rights...
The interviews were conducted by Robert Penn Warren for his book Who Speaks for the Negro?
University Historians Assembling Archive of Runaway Slave Advertisements
Two scholars at the University of Southern Mississippi are starting with ads from Mississippi newspapers but hope to expand the archive to other states, the Caribbean, and Brazil.
Johns Hopkins Exhibit Examines the University’s Black History
The exhibit, entitled "The Indispensable Role of Blacks at Johns Hopkins," pays tribute to 50 individuals "whose professional and personal achievements have brought honor to the institution."
Remembering the Tragic Shooting at Jackson State
The tragedy at Kent State is embedded in America's collective memory but another shooting incident 11 days later at historically Black Jackson State University in Mississippi has not received the same level of attention from historians. A new documentary video seeks to fill the void.
Voorhees College Honors Its Founder
Elizabeth Evelyn Wright Menafee was a graduate of Tuskegee University and after moving to South Carolina wanted to start a school modeled after her alma mater.
In Memoriam: Wesley Anthony Brown (1927-2012)
In 1949 Brown became the first African American graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
Author’s Son Seeks Ownership of a Malcolm X Letter Now in the Syracuse University...
The son of Alex Haley, who helped Malcolm X with his autobiography, states that the letter may be worth as much as $650,000.
Emory University Acquires a Vast Archive of Photographs of African Americans
The more than 10,000 photographs, collected by Robert Langmuir of Philadelphia, contain images from the 1840s to the 1970s.
Historical Mural to Be Restored and Displayed at the University of Arkansas Little Rock
Images on the 1935 mural, entitled "The Struggle of the South," include sharecroppers and a lynching.
New Book Explores the Impact of Early Photography on African Americans
Co-editor Maurice Wallace of Duke states that "early photography helped the U.S. visualize the possibility of African-Americans as proper and fully engaged citizens in our democracy."
How HBCUs Contributed to the 1940s War Effort
A U.S. government video from the 1940s describes how several historically Black colleges and universities were contributing to the war effort.
University of Missouri Kansas City Receives Archives of Jazz Legend
Ahmad Alaadeen was a fixture on the Kansas City jazz scene and in 2010 was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Jazz Museum.
Controversial Murals Find a New Home at the University of Georgia
Murals depicting slavery that had adorned the walls of the Georgia Department of Agriculture will now be displayed at the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia.
Pauli Murray Named a Saint of the Episcopal Church
In 1938, she mounted an unsuccessful legal effort to gain admission to the all-white University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The University of Georgia to Mark the 50th Anniversary of Its First Black Graduate
On August 16, 1962, Mary Frances Early earned a master's degree in music education at the University of Georgia.
Emory University Expands Its African Origins Database
Emory has added the names of an additional 80,000 African captives who were victims of the illegal slave trade.
Arizona State University Honors Its First Black Football Player
In 1937 Emerson Harvey was the first Black player at ASU. His presence on the football team at the university served to play a major role in the racial integration of college sports in the southwest.
Papers of Pearl Cleage Housed at Emory University Archives
A graduate of Spelman College, Cleage is best known for her novels What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day and Babylon Sisters.
Wake Forest University Celebrates 50 Years of Racial Integration
In 1962, Ed Reynolds from Ghana became the first Black student to enroll as a full-time student at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. He returned to the university this past weekend to relate his experiences to current students.
Duke University Acquires the Papers of John Hope Franklin
The archive includes more than 300 boxes of materials which include diaries, correspondence, manuscripts, drafts of speeches, photographs, and video recordings.
The University of Rochester’s New Online Archive of Historical Documents Relating to Abolition
Included in the archives are letters to the Post family of Rochester from Sojourner Truth, Harriet Jacobs, and Frederick Douglass.
The First College Stop of Joseph McGill’s Slave Dwelling Project Tour
McGill sleeps in dwellings that once housed slaves in an effort to garner publicity to preserve these historical buildings as a reminder of our past. His latest stop was at Sweet Briar College in Virginia.
