Black History 365 | # 133 The History of the police

The origins of modern-day policing can be traced back to the "Slave Patrol." The earliest formal slave patrol was created in the Carolinas in the early 1700s with one mission: to establish a system of terror and squash slave uprisings with the capacity to pursue, apprehend, and return runaway slaves to their owners. Tactics included the use of excessive force to control and produce desired slave behavior. Slave Patrols continued until the end of the Civil War and the passage of the 13th Amendment. Following the Civil War, during Reconstruction, slave patrols were replaced by militia-style groups who were empowered to control and deny access to equal rights to freed slaves. They relentlessly and systematically enforced Black Codes, strict local and state laws that regulated and restricted access to labor, wages, voting rights, and general freedoms for formerly enslaved people. In 1868, ratification of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution technically granted equal protections to African Americans — essentially abolishing Black Codes. Jim Crow laws and state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation swiftly took their place. By the 1900s, local municipalities began to establish police departments to enforce local laws in the East and Midwest, including Jim Crow laws. Local municipalities leaned on police to enforce and exert excessive brutality on African Americans who violated any Jim Crow law. Jim Crow Laws continued through the end of the 1960s.

Black History 365 | # 132 Betty Shabazz

Betty Shabazz is an American educator and activist who is the widowed wife of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X). In 1976 Shabazz began working at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, first as a professor, then as the director of its department of communications and public relations. She also lectured occasionally, addressing such topics as civil rights and racial tolerance. Shabazz died in 1997 from severe burns suffered in a fire set by her 12-year-old grandson.

Black History 365 | # 131 Coretta Scott King

Coretta Scott King became a forceful public figure and important leader in the Civil Rights movement in her own right. She made numerous contributions to the struggle for social justice and human rights throughout her life. Coretta Scott and Martin Luther King Jr. married on June 18, 1953.  The following year they moved to Montgomery, Alabama where Martin Luther King Jr. began his work as a minister at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis in 1968, Coretta King was thrust into the national spotlight.  She calmed local and national racial tensions by exuding quiet dignity and courage at his public funeral in Atlanta.  Then just four days after his death, Coretta Scott King led a march of fifty thousand people through the streets of Memphis.

Black History 365 | # 130 Denise Oliver Velez

Denise Oliver Velez was involved in social movements such as the Civil Rights and AIDS awareness programs. Oliver-Velez was a member of both the Young Lords Party and the Black Panther Party. She became the highest-ranking woman in the Young Lords Party. After the Young Lords moved its headquarters from New York to Puerto Rico, Denise Oliver-Velez joined the Black Panther Party. As a member, she worked on the local Panther Party paper and participated in international travel and solidarity work. She is currently an adjunct Professor of Anthropology and Women’s Studies at SUNY New Paltz, and is a Contributing Editor for the progressive political blog Daily Kos.

Black History 365 | # 129 Buddy Bolden

Buddy Bolden is widely known as the inventor of jazz music. While this is debatable, it is clear that Bolden’s music helped form the jazz movement. From New Orleans, from 1898 until 1906, he was known as the King, locally. He formed a band as the coronet player, two clarinet players, one guitarist, one bass player, and a drummer. No one in the band could read sheet music so all compositions played were either copied from other bands or created on the spot, helping to generate the spontaneous improvisation that would become a hallmark of jazz.