Category: History

  • Civil War memorial to honor Toolesboro brothers The Cedar Rapids Gazette Iowa City, Iowa 2014-09-23 Alison Gowans, Features Reporter LOUISA COUNTY, Iowa — When the six Littleton brothers of tiny Toolesboro set off for war, their sisters had no idea they would never welcome their brothers home. The young Louisa County men all sacrificed their…

  • Iowa memorial for six brothers who died as Union soldiers The Washington Post 2014-05-07 Linda Wheeler A site was approved Tuesday for a memorial to honor six brothers of an African American farm family of Toolesboro, Iowa, who died as Union soldiers during the Civil War. The Louisa County Board of Supervisors choose a site…

  • 11 ways race isn’t real Vox 2014-10-10 Jenée Desmond-Harris It was surprising — and, to many, annoying — to learn that Raven Symoné, the brown-skinned girl who played the adorable youngest character on TV’s seminal black sitcom, The Cosby Show, doesn’t consider herself “African-American.” (In a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, she said she thought…

  • Miranda Kaufmann Lecture ‘Africans in Port Towns – 1500-1640’ University of Greenwich Queen Anne 180 – Greenwich Campus Greenwich, England Wednesday, 2014-10-15, 18:00-19:00 BST (Local Time) Dr. Miranda Kaufmann will explore the lives of Africans in 16th and 17th century England and Scotland’s port towns, explaining how they arrived in Britain and how they were…

  • Racial passing was a painful way to improve life Asbury Park Press Neptune, New Jersey 2014-09-19 Kelly-Jane Cotter, Staff Writer Racial passing helped African-Americans create new lives in a time of danger. But a Morristown author’s new book also examines the complex legacy of passing, and the pain of leaving families behind. Allyson Hobbs has…

  • A History of Loss Harvard University Press Blog Harvard University Press 2014-10-08 Between the late eighteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries, countless African Americans passed as white, leaving behind families, friends, and communities without any available avenue for return. As historian Allyson Hobbs explains in A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life,…

  • ‘A Chosen Exile’: Black People Passing In White America Code Switch: Frontiers of Race, Culture and Ethnicity All Things Considered National Public Radio 2014-10-07 Karen Grigsby Bates, Correspondent Culver City, California Dr. Albert Johnston passed in order to practice medicine. After living as leading citizens in Keene, N.H., the Johnstons revealed their true racial identity,…

  • Daughters tell stories of ‘war brides’ despised back home and in the U.S. The Japan Times 2014-10-05 Lucy Alexander Hiroko Furukawa was working as a sales assistant at the PX U.S. military supply store in Ginza in 1950 when she met a GI named Samuel Tolbert. Shortly afterwards, Hiroko and Samuel found themselves married and…

  • Indie Groundbreaking Book: (1)ne Drop Independent Publisher October 2014 Craig Manning Western Michigan University Landmark Photo Essay Book Seeks to “Shift the Lens on Race” Has the social and political mindset on race in 2014 changed from where it was 100 years ago? What is the definition of “Blackness” in the modern age? These are…

  • Bro. Richard Potter: “The Great Magician” Scottish Rite Journal The Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Supreme Council, 33° Washington, D.C. Southern Jurisdiction, U.S.A. March-April 2011 Elliott Saxton, 32° Bro. Richard Potter [see also here] was the first professional American-born magician and is also credited with being our first successful ventriloquist. His fame was such that the town…