James Baldwin (1924–1987) was a writer and civil rights activist who is best known for his semi-autobiographical novels and plays that center on race, politics, and sexuality. His childhood neighborhood would later inspire his first essay, The Harlem Ghetto (1948). In 1948, feeling stifled creatively because of the racial discrimination in America, Baldwin traveled to Europe to create what were later acclaimed as masterpieces to the American literature canon. While living in Paris, Baldwin was able to separate himself from American segregated society and better write about his experience in the culture that was prevalent in America. Baldwin took part in the Civil Rights Movement, becoming close friends with Medgar Evers, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Maya Angelou, Nina Simone, and Lorraine Hansberry. He was also one of the first Black writers to include queer themes in fiction, notably in Giovanni’s Room (1956), writing with a frankness that was highly controversial at the time. The successive assassinations of Evers, Malcolm X and King in the late 1960s plunged Baldwin into a nervous breakdown. In 1971, he moved permanently to France, settling in a small village in Provence, Saint-Paul de Vence, which was to become his final resting place. In 2016 Baldwin was the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary by director Raoul Peck, I Am Not Your Negro. The film mixed archival footage of the civil rights movement with contemporary footage of the BLM movement and included historical interviews with Baldwin.
Black History 365 | # 189 Gordon Parks
Gordon Parks was a self-taught photographer, writer, composer, and filmmaker. Parks is remembered as the first African-American photographer who worked for Vogue and Life magazines, known for his documentary photojournalism of the 1940s through the 1970s. He captured iconic images of the civil rights movement, investigating important turning points in inner cities around the United States. Along with these charged moments, he also captured candid portraits of artists and musicians. If you don’t know his work, get familiar. You might already be familiar, after all Gordon Parks, is one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth century.
Black History 365 | # 188 Eunice Roberta Hunton Carter
Eunice Hunton Carter was the first African-American woman to work as a prosecutor in the New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney’s Office. As a key assistant to special prosecutor Thomas Dewey, she is credited with establishing key facts in the prosecution of mobster Charlie “Lucky” Luciano. After a brief period as a social worker, Carter’s determination to use the law as an instrument for change grew stronger. In 1927, she enrolled in Fordham University School of Law as one of the few women and even fewer African Americans in her class. She faced both racial and gender biases but overcame them, becoming the first African American woman to graduate from Fordham Law in 1932. In 1947, Carter was one of fifteen American women invited to attend the first International Assembly on Women in Paris to discuss “human and educational problems affecting peace and freedom.” She remained busy and active in the NAACP & YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association) amongst many other national and international organizations and committees. Eunice Hunton Carter died in New York City on January 25, 1970, at the age of seventy. Much respect to her lasting legacy.
Black History 365 | # 187 Frederick Douglass "Fritz" Pollard
Fritz Pollard, an All-America halfback from Brown University was a pro football pioneer in more ways than one. He was the first African American selected to a backfield position on Walter Camp’s All-America team (1916) and the first African American head coach in the National Football League (NFL), with the Akron Pros in 1921. A recipient of the Rockefeller scholarship which allowed Pollard to attend Brown University in 1915, where he broke racial barriers. As a two time All-American, Pollard became a college football standout despite his modest 5'9", 165-pound stature. He was the first African-American to play in the Rose Bowl at the end of the 1915 season, and in 1916, he led Brown to back-to- back wins over Ivy League powerhouses Harvard and Yale en route to an 8-1 overall record. He lived until he was 92 years old, passing away May 11, 1986, in Silver Spring, Maryland. Rest in peace.
Black History 365 | # 186 Amelia Boyton Robinson
Amelia Boyton Robinson is a civil rights trailblazer who played a key role of the 1965 voting rights act. Amelia Boynton had come to Selma, Alabama as an agricultural extension agent in 1929 where she met and married her co-worker Samuel William Boyton. and used their government positions encourage Black people to register to vote and buy land. So, when Bernard Lafayette and his wife Colia Liddell of the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) came to Selma, Alabama in the fall of 1962, they found Amelia Boynton and her husband were ready and primed for action. In 1962, she ran for a congress seat in the US House. Making her the first female African American to run for office in Alabama and as a democrat in the state. In spite of intense voter suppression she received 10% of the votes. She invited Martin Luther King Jr & to organize civil rights efforts in her home. She was instrumental in organizing the Selma to Montgomery Marches. She was documented unconscious in the streets during Bloody Sunday. The public beating of black civil rights activists led to President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act of 1964, she was in attendance when he signed it. Amelia Boynton Robinson died in 2015. Just months before her death, Amelia crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge again, this time with President Obama and Congressman John Lewis. They, and hundreds of others, were there to mark the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march.