Table of Contents
The ABCs of Black History: Terms and Figures James BaldwinA is for AnthemLift Ev'ry Voice and Sing James Weldon Johnson John Rosamond Johnson NAACPB is for Beautiful, Brave, Bright, Bold, Brotherhood, Believing "Black is beautiful" Kwame BrathwaiteSoul Train Don CorneliusC is for Community, Church, Civil Rights Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dexter Avenue Baptist ChurchD is for Diaspora African Diaspora slave trade Senegal Gambia Guinea-Bissau Mali Angola Congo the Democrative Republic of Congo Gabon Nigeria the Ivory Coast Ghana Sudan CameroonE is for Explore, Education, Expanding the mind literacy segregation Linda Brown and Brown v. Board of Education Ruby Bridges Little Rock Nine Matthew Henson Mae JemisonF is for Food, Farmed, Fried Fish, Folklore, Family, Freedom Emancipation Proclamation sharecroppers soul food "jumping the broom"G is for Go!, Great Migration Black Codes blues musicH is for Harlem, Heart, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston W.E.B. Du Bois Alain Locke Harlem Renaissance James Weldon Johnson Jean Toomer Arna Bontemps Countee Cullen Claude McKay Duke Ellington Bessie Smith Louis Armstrong Ethel Waters Bill "Bojangles" Robinson "Ma" Rainey Eubie Blake Apollo Theater Paul Robeson Marcus Garvey Arthur Schomburg Henry O. Tanner James Van Der Zee Aaron Douglass Augusta Savage Lillian Harris Dean (Pig Foot Mary)I is for Imagine, Invent, Innovative George Washington Carver Madame C.J. Walker (Sarah Breedlove) Gwendolyn Brooks Alvin Ailey DJ Kool Herc Jean-Michel BasquiatJ is for Joy, Juneteenth, J'Ouvert MorningCarnival TrinidadCanboulayK is for Kin, Kwanzaa Dr. Maulana Karenga Kwanzaa principles: Umoja Kujichagulia Ujima Ujamaa Nia Kuumba Imani kinara KiswahiliL is for Love Rose and Ashley / Ashley's sack (Rose was Ashley's mother and they were both enslaved. When Ashley was sold at the age of 9, her mother gave her a sack that held the scraps of a dress, handfuls of pecans, and a braid of Rose's hair. They never saw each other again, but the sack has survived generations.) Nat Love Mildred Loving Marsha "Pay It No Mind" JohnsonM is for March, Matter March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963) "I Have a Dream" speech Bloody Sunday March from Selma to Montgomery John Lewis "We Shall Overcome" "Wade in the Water" "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round" Ahmaud Arbery Breonna Taylor George Floyd Black Lives Matter Patrisse Kahn-Cullors Alicia Garza Opal TometiN is for Newspapers abolitionist movementThe North Star Frederick DouglassChicago Defender Pittsburgh Courier Richmond Planet Chicago Bee Johnson Publishing Company John H. JohnsonNegro Digest Jet EbonyO is for Organize Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Freedom Summer Freedom Rides Diane Nash Fred Hampton Ella Baker Southern Christian Leadership ConferenceP is for Power, Panther, People, Power, President, Possible "Black Power" Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) Black Panther Party Bobby Seale Huey P. Newton Thurgood Marshall Shirley Chisholm Barack ObamaQ is for Queens Queen Nefertiti, ancient Egyptian queen Queen Amina, mid-16th century queen, present-day Nigeria Queen Nandi Ndlovukazi kaBhebe, 18th century queen of the Zulu in what is now South Africa Queen Yaa Asantewaa, 19th century Ashanti Queen, present-day Ghana Ruby Hurley, "queen of Civil Rights" Ida B. Wells Leontyne Price Toni Morrison Michelle Obama Toni MorrisonR is for Rise, Relentlessly striving, Refusing to stop Rube Foster, Negro Leagues Jesse Owens Jackie Robinson Althea Gibson Muhammad Ali Arthur Ashe Florence Griffith Joyner Shani Davis Gabby DouglasS is for Scientists, Stars, Study, Soul, Sweet, Sound Charles H. Turner Daniel Hale Williams Vivien Thomas Benjamin Banneker Patricia Bath Katherine Johnson Kizzmekia Corbett Ray Charles Aretha Franklin Sam Cooke James Brown Sister Rosetta TharpeT is for Tuskegee, Trades, Toiled, Tools, Booker T., True Tuskegee Institute Tuskegee Airmen Booker T. Washington W.E.B. DuBoisU is for United States, Unbroken, Unshaken, Unbound, Underground Railroad, Unfinished U.S. Constitution 13th Amendment 14th Amendment 15th Amendment The Civil WarAfrican-American Flag David Hammons Harriet Tubman the Underground RailroadV is for Vote Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom SummerW is for Writers, Wisdom, Words, WorldsArthur Schomburg Negro Society for Historical Research Schomburg Center for Research and Black CultureX is for Malcolm XY is for Young, Gifted and Black, You Lorraine HansberryA Raisin in the Sun "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" Nina SimoneZ is for Zenith Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Mountaintop Speech"