"Lift Every Voice and Sing" Historical Context by Deborah Danko

1983, Martin Luther King Jr. Day

2025-06-10 15:30:22 UTC

This holiday was created to represent MLK jr. to highlight what he stood for: civil and equal rights.

Black History-(19th Century) (Fredrick Douglass) Joel Camacho

s1004027725 — 2025-06-10 15:30:59 UTC

Frederick Douglass was a important leader, fighting for the end of slavery and the rights of African Americans in the 19th century. Fredrick became a powerful speaker and writer advocated for freedom and equality. He made a real impact for the Blacks and till today's day people fight for their rights and freedom.

Los Angeles Riots, 1992

s1004052188 — 2025-06-10 15:33:05 UTC

Officers with the California Highway Patrol attempted to pull an African American man named Rodney King over for speeding on a Los Angeles freeway. King led them on a high-speed chase, and by the time the patrolmen caught up to his car, several officers of the Los Angeles Police Department were on the scene, after King allegedly resisted arrest and threatened them, four LAPD officers shot him with a TASER gun and severely beat him, which lead to riots for the justice for racial profiling.

Oprah Winfrey Launches Syndicated Talk Show, 1986

s1004052706 — 2025-06-10 15:35:07 UTC

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the success of the long-running sitcom The Cosby Show—featuring popular comedian Bill Cosby as the doctor patriarch of a close-knit middle-class African American family—helped redefine the image of Black characters on mainstream American television. Suddenly, there was no lack of educated, upwardly mobile, family-oriented Black characters for TV viewers to look to, both in fiction and in life. In 1980, entrepreneur Robert L. Johnson founded Black Entertainment Television (BET), which he later sold to entertainment giant Viacom for some $3 billion. Perhaps the most striking phenomenon, however, was the rise of Oprah Winfrey.

Million Man March, 1995

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In October 1995, hundreds of thousands of Black men gathered in Washington, D.C. for the Million Man March, one of the largest demonstrations of its kind in the capital’s history. Its organizer, Minister Louis Farrakhan, had called for “a million sober, disciplined, committed, dedicated, inspired Black men to meet in Washington on a day of atonement.” Farrakhan, who had asserted control over the Nation of Islam (commonly known as the Black Muslims) in the late 1970s and reasserted its original principles of Black separatism, may have been an incendiary figure, but the idea behind the Million Man March was one most Black—and many white—people could get behind.

Jackie Robinson 1947

s1004028831 — 2025-06-10 15:36:39 UTC

Robinson played his first game with the Dodgers on April 15, 1947; he led the National League in stolen bases that season, earning Rookie of the Year honors. Over the next nine years, Robinson compiled a .311 batting average and led the Dodgers to six league championships and one World Series victory. Despite his success on the field, however, he encountered hostility from both fans and other players. Members of the St. Louis Cardinals even threatened to strike if Robinson played; baseball commissioner Ford Frick settled the question by threatening to suspend any player who went on strike.

African Americans in WWII, 1941

s1004028831 — 2025-06-10 15:36:48 UTC

During World War II, many African Americans were ready to fight for what President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the “Four Freedoms”—freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear—even while they themselves lacked those freedoms at home. More than 3 million Black Americans would register for service during the war, with some 500,000 seeing action overseas. According to War Department policy, enlisted Black and white people were organized into separate units. Frustrated Black servicemen were forced to combat racism even as they sought to further U.S. war aims; this became known as the “Double V” strategy, for the two victories they sought to win.

Brown v. Board of Education, May 17, 1954

s1004028831 — 2025-06-10 15:37:23 UTC

On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its verdict in Brown v. Board of Education, ruling unanimously that racial segregation in public schools violated the 14th Amendment’s mandate of equal protection of the laws of the U.S. Constitution to any person within its jurisdiction. Oliver Brown, the lead plaintiff in the case, was one of almost 200 people from five different states who had joined related NAACP cases brought before the Supreme Court since 1938.

Jesse Jackson Galvanizes Black Voters, (1984)

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Jesse Jackson left his studies at the Chicago Theological Seminary to join Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in its crusade for Black civil rights in the South; when King was assassinated in Memphis in April 1968, Jackson was at his side. In 1971, Jackson founded PUSH, or People United to Save Humanity (later changed to People United to Serve Humanity), an organization that advocated self-reliance for African Americans and sought to establish racial parity in the business and financial community.

Colin Powell Becomes Secretary of State, 2001

s1004052706 — 2025-06-10 15:37:30 UTC

As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993—the first African American to hold that position—the Vietnam veteran and four–star U.S. Army general Colin Powell played an integral role in planning and executing the first Persian Gulf War under President George H.W. Bush. After his retirement from the military in 1993, many people began floating his name as a possible presidential candidate. He decided against running, but soon became a prominent fixture in the Republican Party.

Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, December 1955

s1004028831 — 2025-06-10 15:39:16 UTC

On December 1, 1955, an African American woman named Rosa Parks was riding a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama when the driver told her to give up her seat to a white man. Parks refused and was arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation ordinances, which mandated that Black passengers sit in the back of public buses and give up their seats for white riders if the front seats were full. Parks, a 42-year-old seamstress, was also the secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. As she later explained: “I had been pushed as far as I could stand to be pushed. I had decided that I would have to know once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen.”

Central High School Integrated, September 1957

s1004028831 — 2025-06-10 15:39:18 UTC

Although the Supreme Court declared segregation of public schools illegal in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the decision was extremely difficult to enforce, as 11 southern states enacted resolutions interfering with, nullifying or protesting school desegregation. In Arkansas, Governor Orval Faubus made resistance to desegregation a central part of his successful 1956 reelection campaign.

Jim Crow Laws, 1880's Benji M

2025-06-10 15:39:31 UTC

In the 1880s through the 1900, The Jim Crow Law was established so there could be segregation between African Americans and White Americans, The Law was seen as an unfair law because of the treatment the African Americans we getting. It was created and formed in the south to make it harder and limit the political rights of an African American.

Willie Lewis Brown, Jr. - 1995

s1004052706 — 2025-06-10 15:39:38 UTC

December 2: U.S. politician Willie Lewis Brown, Jr. (born 1934) is selected by the California Assembly to become the Speaker of the state legislature. Brown is the first Black person to hold this position. He serves in this capacity for 15 years and in 1995 is elected as mayor of San Francisco. He later becomes a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicles.

Core and freedom rides, May 1961

2025-06-10 15:40:03 UTC

Founded in 1942 by the civil rights leader James Farmer, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) sought to end discrimination and improve race relations through direct action. In its early years, CORE staged a sit-in at a Chicago coffee shop (a precursor to the successful sit-in movement of 1960) and organized a “Journey of Reconciliation,” in which a group of Black and white activists rode together on a bus through the upper South in 1947, a year after the U.S. Supreme Court banned segregation in interstate bus travel.

Loving v. Virginia Ruling, 1958

s1004028831 — 2025-06-10 15:40:52 UTC

Mildred and Richard Loving were one of the first interracial couples legally married in the United States and their union marked a pivotal moment in marriage rights for mixed-race families. At 2 a.m. on July 11, 1958, Mildred Jeter was lying next to her husband Richard Loving, when police began knocking on their door, demanding to know about the nature of their relationship. At the time, interracial marriage was illegal in Virginia and the newly-wed couple was guilty of breaking the law.

Sit-In Movement and Founding of SNCC, 1960

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On February 1, 1960, four Black students from the Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, North Carolina, sat down at the lunch counter in a local branch of Woolworth’s and ordered coffee. Refused service due to the counter’s "whites-only" policy, they stayed put until the store closed, then returned the next day with other students. Heavily covered by the news media, the Greensboro sit-ins sparked a movement that spread quickly to college towns throughout the South and into the North, as young Black and white people engaged in various forms of peaceful protest against segregation in libraries, on beaches, in hotels and other establishments. Though many protesters were arrested for trespassing, disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, their actions made an immediate impact, forcing Woolworth’s—among other establishments—to change their segregationist policies.

CORE and Freedom Rides, May 1961

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Integration of Ole Miss, September 1962

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By the end of the 1950s, African Americans had begun to be admitted in small numbers to white colleges and universities in the South without too much incident. In 1962, however, a crisis erupted when the state-funded University of Mississippi (known as “Ole Miss”) admitted a Black man, James Meredith. After nine years in the Air Force, Meredith had studied at the all–Black Jackson State College and applied repeatedly to the University of Mississippi with no success. With the aid of the NAACP, Meredith filed a lawsuit alleging that the university had discriminated against him because of his race. In September 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Meredith’s favor, but state officials, including Governor Ross Barnett vowed to block his admission.

Civil War and Emancipation (1861) Jesus Gomez, Antonio Balderas, Samuel Garcia

s1004030602 — 2025-06-10 15:43:04 UTC

The American Civil War, beginning in 1861, began due to sectional conflicts, but initially focused on preserving the Union rather than abolishing slavery. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 freed enslaved people in rebel states, significantly shifting the war's focus and boosting Union support.

Birmingham Church Bombed, 1963

2025-06-10 15:43:34 UTC

Despite Martin Luther King Jr.’s inspiring words at the Lincoln Memorial during the historic March on Washington in August 1963, violence against Black people in the segregated South continued to indicate the strength of white resistance to the ideals of justice and racial harmony King espoused. In mid-September, white supremacists bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama during Sunday services; four young African American girls were killed in the explosion. The church bombing was the third in 11 days after the federal government had ordered the integration of Alabama’s school system. Birmingham had become a leading focus of the civil rights movement by the spring of 1963 when Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested there while leading supporters of his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in a nonviolent campaign of demonstrations against segregation.

African American in WWII, 1941

s1004033335 — 2025-06-10 15:43:55 UTC

African American soldiers fought bravely during WWII, seeking justice both overseas and at home through the Double V campaign. Their courage and perseverance not only contributed to the war effort but also laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement. Truman’s Executive Order 9981 was a direct response to these efforts and a landmark moment in the fight for racial equality in America.

'I Have a Dream,' 1963

2025-06-10 15:45:07 UTC

On August 28, 1963, some 250,000 people—both Black and white—participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the largest demonstration in the history of the nation’s capital and the most significant display of the civil rights movement’s growing strength. After marching from the Washington Monument, the demonstrators gathered near the Lincoln Memorial, where a number of civil rights leaders addressed the crowd, calling for voting rights, equal employment opportunities for Black Americans and an end to racial segregation.

Black History-(19th Century) (Martin Luther King Jr) Joel Camacho

s1004027725 — 2025-06-10 15:45:30 UTC

Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights leader and Baptist minister who fought for equality for all Americans. Martin Luther King Jr. changed the world by organizing marches, protests which fought for equality and justice for African Americans.

1841-1861 Fighting for freedom before the civil war

2025-06-10 15:45:36 UTC

This was a time when many African American faced harsh realities of slavery and discrimination. They fought for their freedom in many ways some escaped slavery through the underground railroad, risking their lives to reach safety. Their courage and determination helped build the movement for equality that inspired future generations.

Freedom Summer and the 'Mississippi Burning' Murders, June 1964

2025-06-10 15:46:32 UTC

In the summer of 1964, civil rights organizations including the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) urged white students from the North to travel to Mississippi, where they helped register Black voters and build schools for Black children. The organizations believed the participation of white students in the so-called “Freedom Summer” would bring increased visibility to their efforts. The summer had barely begun, however, when three volunteers—Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, both white New Yorkers, and James Chaney, a Black Mississippian—disappeared on their way back from investigating the burning of an African American church by the Ku Klux Klan. After a massive FBI investigation (code–named “Mississippi Burning”) their bodies were discovered on August 4 buried in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, in Neshoba County, Mississippi. In October 1967, an all-white jury found seven of the defendants guilty and acquitted the other nine.

MARUS GARVEY AND THE UNIA (1916)

2025-06-10 15:47:36 UTC

Marcus Garvey founded his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) there in 1914; two years later, he brought it to the United States. Garvey appealed to the racial pride of African Americans, exalting blackness as a symbol of strength and beauty. As racial prejudice was so ingrained in white civilization, Garvey claimed, it was futile for Black people to appeal to white people’s sense of justice and democratic principles.

Selma to Montgomery March, March 1965

2025-06-10 15:48:09 UTC

In early 1965, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) made Selma, Alabama, the focus of its efforts to register Black voters in the South. Alabama’s governor, George Wallace, was a notorious opponent of desegregation, and the local county sheriff had led a steadfast opposition to Black voter registration drives: Only 2 percent of Selma’s eligible Black voters had managed to register. In February, an Alabama state trooper shot a young African American demonstrator in nearby Marion, and the SCLC announced a massive protest march from Selma to the state capital in Montgomery. On March 7, 600 marchers got as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge outside Selma when they were attacked by state troopers wielding whips, nightsticks and tear gas. King himself led another attempt on March 9, but turned the marchers around when state troopers again blocked the road; that night, a group of segregationists fatally beat a protester, the young white minister James Reeb. On March 21, after a U.S. district court ordered Alabama to permit the Selma-Montgomery march, some 2,000 marchers set out on the three-day journey, this time protected by U.S. Army troops and Alabama National Guard forces under federal control.

Malcolm X Shot to Death, February 1965

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As the outspoken public voice of the Black Muslim faith, Malcolm challenged the mainstream civil rights movement and the nonviolent pursuit of integration championed by Martin Luther King Jr. Instead, he urged followers to defend themselves against white aggression “by any means necessary.” Mounting tensions between Malcolm and Elijah Muhammad, the founder of the NOI, led Malcolm to form his mosque in 1964. He made a pilgrimage to Mecca that same year and underwent a second conversion, this time to Sunni Islam. Calling himself el–Hajj Malik el–Shabazz, he renounced NOI’s philosophy of separatism and advocated a more inclusive approach to the struggle for Black rights.

On February 21, 1965, during a speaking engagement in Harlem, three members of the NOI rushed the stage and shot Malcolm some 15 times at close range. After Malcolm’s death, his bestselling book The Autobiography of Malcolm X popularized his ideas, particularly among Black youth, and laid the foundation for the Black Power movement of the late 1960s and 1970s.

The Post-Slavery South (1865) Jesus Gomez, Antonio Balderas, Samuel Garcia

s1004030602 — 2025-06-10 15:49:33 UTC

After the Civil War, the 13th Amendment was adopted--abolishing slavery, but the Black Codes restricted the freedom of formerly enslaved people. Despite the 14th and 15th Amendments expanding rights and Black Americans gaining political power during Reconstruction, white supremacist groups undermined these advancements, leaving little lasting improvement in their economic and social status by 1877.

Underground Railroad, 1840s

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The Underground Railroad was run by Black and white helpers who helped slaves escape to freedom. People who helped there were called "conductors." Harriet Tubman was a famous conductor who made many trips to save lives. It used safe houses called "stations" where slaves could rest. The journey was dangerous, but many found freedom in the North and Canada.

Rosa parks getting thrown out of a bus- (19 century) (Rosa parks) Joel Camacho

s1004027725 — 2025-06-10 15:50:55 UTC

Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger, and was arrested for it in Montgomery, Alabama. I believe it was all due to racistism and because of her race.

Malcolm X Shot to Death, February 1965

2025-06-10 15:52:13 UTC

In 1952, the former Malcolm Little was released from prison after serving six years on a robbery charge; while incarcerated, he had joined the Nation of Islam (NOI, commonly known as the Black Muslims), given up drinking and drugs and replaced his surname with an X to signify his rejection of his “slave” name. Charismatic and eloquent, Malcolm X soon became an influential leader of the NOI, which combined Islam with Black nationalism and sought to encourage disadvantaged young Black people searching for confidence in segregated America. Mounting tensions between Malcolm and NOI founder Elijah Muhammad led Malcolm to form his own mosque in 1964. On February 21, 1965, during a speaking engagement in Harlem, three members of the NOI rushed the stage and shot Malcolm some 15 times at close range.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

s1004032719 — 2025-06-10 15:54:04 UTC

Congress was debating Kennedy’s civil rights reform bill when he was killed by an assassin’s bullet in Dallas, Texas in November 1963. It was left to Lyndon Johnson to push the Civil Rights Act—the most far-reaching act of legislation supporting racial equality in American history—through Congress in June 1964. The act gave the federal government more power to protect citizens against discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex or national origin. It mandated the desegregation of most public accommodations, including lunch counters, bus depots, parks and swimming pools, and established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to ensure equal treatment of minorities in the workplace.

Voting Rights Act of 1965, August 1965

2025-06-10 15:55:14 UTC

in March 1965, President Lyndon Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress, calling for federal legislation to ensure protection of the voting rights of African Americans. The result was the Voting Rights Act, which Congress passed in August 1965. The Voting Rights Act sought to overcome the legal barriers that still existed at the state and local levels preventing Black citizens from exercising the right to vote given them by the 15th Amendment. Along with the Civil Rights Act of the previous year, the Voting Rights Act was one of the most expansive pieces of civil rights legislation in American history, and it greatly reduced the disparity between Black and white voters in the U.S. In Mississippi alone, the percentage of eligible Black voters registered to vote increased from 5 percent in 1960 to nearly 60 percent in 1968. In the mid-1960s, 70 African Americans were serving as elected officials in the South, while by the turn of the century there were some 5,000. In the same time period, the number of Black people serving in Congress increased from six to about 40.

Louis Armstrong 1920

2025-06-10 15:55:46 UTC

In the 1920s, Louis Armstrong rose to prominence as a jazz trumpeter and vocalist, revolutionized the music with his innovative trumpet solos and scat singing, and transitioned jazz from collective improvisation to solo performance. He moved from New Orleans to Chicago to play with "King" Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, then to New York, where he influenced the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. By the end of the decade, he was a star, headlining records, radio, and jazz clubs, and his groundbreaking style, including scat singing, became highly influential.

Rise of Black Power

2025-06-10 15:57:07 UTC

After the heady rush of the civil rights movement’s first years, anger and frustration was increasing among many African Americans, who saw clearly that true equality—social, economic and political—still eluded them. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, this frustration fueled the rise of the Black Power movement. According to then–SNCC chairman Stokely Carmichael, who first popularized the term “Black Power” in 1966, the traditional civil rights movement and its emphasis on nonviolence, did not go far enough, and the federal legislation it had achieved failed to address the economic and social disadvantages facing Black Americans. Also in 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, college students in Oakland, California, founded the Black Panther Party. Clashes ensued between the Panthers and police in California, New York and Chicago, and in 1967 Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter after killing a police officer. His trial brought national attention to the organization, which at its peak in the late 1960s boasted some 2,000 members.

Historical Figures of Black History from (1861-1881) Antonio Balderas, Jesus Gomez, Samuel Garcia

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Frederick Douglass- Abolitionist Leader
Harriet Tubam- Freedom Fighter
Sojourner Truth- Women's advocate
W.E.B. Du Bois- Civil rights activist
Hiram Revels - First Black Senator

Fair Housing Act, April 1968

2025-06-10 15:59:33 UTC

The Fair Housing Act of 1968, meant as a follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, marked the last great legislative achievement of the civil rights era. Originally intended to extend federal protection to civil rights workers, it was later expanded to address racial discrimination in the sale, rental or financing of housing units. After the bill passed the Senate by an exceedingly narrow margin in early April, it was thought that the increasingly conservative House of Representatives, wary of the growing strength and militancy of the Black Power movement, would weaken it considerably. On the day of the Senate vote, however, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Pressure to pass the bill increased amid the wave of national remorse that followed, and after a strictly limited debate, the House passed the Fair Housing Act on April 10. President Johnson signed it into law the following day. From 1950 to 1980, the total Black population in America’s urban centers increased from 6.1 million to 15.3 million; during this same time period, white Americans steadily moved out of the cities into the suburbs, taking with them many of the employment opportunities Black people needed.

MLK Assassinated, April 4, 1968

2025-06-10 16:03:23 UTC

On April 4, 1968, the world was stunned and saddened by the news that the civil rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot and killed on the balcony of a motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had gone to support a sanitation workers’ strike. King’s death opened a huge rift between white and Black Americans, as many Black people saw the killing as a rejection of their vigorous pursuit of equality through the nonviolent resistance he had championed. In more than 100 cities, several days of riots, burning and looting followed his death. Ray later recanted his confession, and despite several inquiries into the matter by the U.S. government, many continued to believe that the speedy trial had been a cover-up for a larger conspiracy. King’s assassination, along with the killing of Malcolm X three years earlier, radicalized many moderate African American activists, fueling the growth of the Black Power movement and the Black Panther Party. The success of conservative politicians that year—including Richard Nixon’s election as president and the third-party candidacy of the ardent segregationist George Wallace, who won 13 percent of the vote—further discouraged African Americans, many of whom felt that the tide was turning against the civil rights movement.

Shirley Chisholm Runs for President, 1972

2025-06-10 16:04:36 UTC

By the early 1970s, the advances of the civil rights movement had combined with the rise of the feminist movement to create an African American women’s movement. “There can’t be liberation for half a race,” declared Margaret Sloan, one of the women behind the National Black Feminist Organization, founded in 1973. A year earlier, Representative Shirley Chisholm of New York became a national symbol of both movements as the first major party African American candidate and the first female candidate for president of the United States. A former educational consultant and a founder of the National Women’s Caucus, Chisholm became the first Black woman in Congress in 1968, when she was elected to the House from her Brooklyn district.

The Bakke Decision and Affirmative Action, 1978

2025-06-10 16:05:29 UTC

Beginning in the 1960s, the term “affirmative action” was used to refer to policies and initiatives aimed at compensating for past discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion or national origin. President John F. Kennedy first used the phrase in 1961, in an executive order calling on the federal government to hire more African Americans. By the mid 1970s, many universities were seeking to increase the presence of minority and female faculty and students on their campuses. The University of California at Davis, for example, designated 16 percent of its medical school’s admissions spots for minority applicants. In June 1978, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the use of strict racial quotas was unconstitutional and that Bakke should be admitted; on the other hand, it held that institutions of higher education could rightfully use race as a criterion in admissions decisions in order to ensure diversity.