Americans have recognized black history annually since 1926, first as “Negro History Week” and later as “Black History Month.” What you might not know is that black history had barely begun to be studied-or even documented-when the tradition originated. Although blacks have been in America at least as far back as colonial times, it was not until the 20th century that they gained a respectable presence in the history books.

Blacks Absent from History Books

We owe the celebration of Black History Month, and more importantly, the study of black history, to Dr. Carter G. Woodson. Born to parents who were former slaves, he spent his childhood working in the Kentucky coal mines and enrolled in high school at age twenty. He graduated within two years and later went on to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard. The scholar was disturbed to find in his studies that history books largely ignored the black American population-and when blacks did figure into the picture, it was generally in ways that reflected the inferior social position they were assigned at the time.

Established Journal of Negro History

Woodson, always one to act on his ambitions, decided to take on the challenge of writing black Americans into the nation’s history. He established the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now called the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History) in 1915, and a year later founded the widely respected Journal of Negro History. In 1926, he launched Negro History Week as an initiative to bring national attention to the contributions of black people throughout American history.

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“It’s probably the most hallowed record out there, as far as I’m concerned, but it’s now in the hands of somebody else,” said Aaron, who retired in 1976. “My hope today…is the achievement of this record will inspire others to chase their own dreams.”

Aaron congratulates Barry Bonds:

Aaron – born Henry Louis Aaron in Mobile, AL – knows plenty about dreams. He quit high school in 1951 to play for the Indianapolis Clowns in the Negro League. He started in the major league’s in 1954. He broke Babe Ruth’s record in 1974.

“I thought, we’ve come along way baby,” Aaron said in an interview regarding breaking’s Ruth’s record, “From Mobile, Ala., to breaking the most prestigious record in baseball. I feel very proud of myself like I had shown everybody that I could play major league baseball.”

Breaking Ruth’s record not only showed the world that Aaron could play major league baseball, but it was another signpost of what would become African-Americans’ domination of professional sports.

Aaron on breaking Ruth’s record:

A few notable achievements:
• Aaron made the All-Star team every year from 1955 until 1975.
• Won three Gold Glove Awards.
• Won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1957

Read Aaron’s bio here.

Read Newsone’s black 3,000 hitmakers. Read the full story.

James Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. His parents divorced when he was a small child, and his father moved to Mexico. His grandmother raised him until he was thirteen, when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. It was in Lincoln, Illinois, that Hughes began writing poetry. Following graduation, he spent a year in Mexico and a year at Columbia University. During these years, he held odd jobs as an assistant cook, launderer, and a busboy, and traveled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman. In November 1924, he moved to Washington, D.C. Hughes’s first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926. He finished his college education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930 his first novel, Not Without Laughter, won the Harmon gold medal for literature.

Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in Montage of a Dream Deferred. His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen, Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself.

Langston Hughes died of complications from prostate cancer in May 22, 1967, in New York. In his memory, his residence at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem, New York City, has been given landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission, and East 127th Street has been renamed “Langston Hughes Place.”

In addition to leaving us a large body of poetic work, Hughes wrote eleven plays and countless works of prose, including the well-known “Simple” books: Simple Speaks His Mind, Simple Stakes a Claim, Simple Takes a Wife, and Simple’s Uncle Sam. He edited the anthologies The Poetry of the Negro and The Book of Negro Folklore, wrote an acclaimed autobiography, The Big Sea and co-wrote the play Mule Bone with Zora Neale Hurston.

A Selected Bibliography

Poetry

Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz (1961)
Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (1994)
Dear Lovely Death (1931)
Fields of Wonder (1947)
Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927)
Freedom’s Plow (1943)
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
One-Way Ticket (1949)
Scottsboro Limited (1932)
Selected Poems (1959)
Shakespeare in Harlem (1942)
The Dream Keeper and Other Poems (1932)
The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times (1967)
The Weary Blues (1926)

Prose

Good Morning, Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Writings by Langston Hughes (1973)
I Wonder as I Wander (1956)
Laughing to Keep From Crying (1952)
Not Without Laughter (1930)
Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, 1925-1964 (2001)
Simple Speaks His Mind (1950)
Simple Stakes a Claim (1957)
Simple Takes a Wife (1953)
Simple’s Uncle Sam (1965)
Something in Common and Other Stories (1963)
Tambourines to Glory (1958)
The Arna Bontemps-Langston Hughes Letters (1980)
The Big Sea (1940)
The Langston Hughes Reader (1958)
The Ways of White Folks (1934)

Drama

Black Nativity (1961)
Collected Works of Langston Hughes, vol. 5: The Plays to 1942: Mulatto to The Sun Do Move (2000)
Don’t You Want to Be Free? (1938)
Five Plays by Langston Hughes (1963)
Little Ham (1935)
Mulatto (1935)
Mule Bone (1930)
Simply Heavenly (1957)
Soul Gone Home (1937)
The Political Plays of Langston Hughes (2000)

Poetry in Translation

Cuba Libre (1948)
Gypsy Ballads (1951)
Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral (1957)

Translation

Masters of the Dew (1947)

Black history is American history.
Morgan Freeman

Dr. Martin Luther King is not a black hero. He is an American hero.
Morgan Freeman

There’s so much negative imagery of black fatherhood. I’ve got tons of friends that are doing the right thing by their kids, and doing the right thing as a father – and how come that’s not as newsworthy?
Will Smith

Me only have one ambition, y’know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together – black, white, Chinese, everyone – that’s all.
Bob Marley

I don’t stand for the black man’s side, I don’ t stand for the white man’s side. I stand for God’s side.
Bob Marley

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Black history is American history.
Morgan Freeman

Dr. Martin Luther King is not a black hero. He is an American hero.
Morgan Freeman

There’s so much negative imagery of black fatherhood. I’ve got tons of friends that are doing the right thing by their kids, and doing the right thing as a father – and how come that’s not as newsworthy?
Will Smith

Me only have one ambition, y’know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together – black, white, Chinese, everyone – that’s all.
Bob Marley

I don’t stand for the black man’s side, I don’ t stand for the white man’s side. I stand for God’s side.
Bob Marley

Source: elev8.com

Most Popular Posts

• Viewed
• Commented
• Rated

Black history is American history.
Morgan Freeman

Dr. Martin Luther King is not a black hero. He is an American hero.
Morgan Freeman

There’s so much negative imagery of black fatherhood. I’ve got tons of friends that are doing the right thing by their kids, and doing the right thing as a father – and how come that’s not as newsworthy?
Will Smith

Me only have one ambition, y’know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together – black, white, Chinese, everyone – that’s all.
Bob Marley

I don’t stand for the black man’s side, I don’ t stand for the white man’s side. I stand for God’s side.
Bob Marley

Source: elev8.com

Most Popular Posts

• Viewed
• Commented
• Rated

Black history is American history.
Morgan Freeman

Dr. Martin Luther King is not a black hero. He is an American hero.
Morgan Freeman

There’s so much negative imagery of black fatherhood. I’ve got tons of friends that are doing the right thing by their kids, and doing the right thing as a father – and how come that’s not as newsworthy?
Will Smith

Me only have one ambition, y’know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together – black, white, Chinese, everyone – that’s all.
Bob Marley

I don’t stand for the black man’s side, I don’ t stand for the white man’s side. I stand for God’s side.
Bob Marley

Source: elev8.com

Most Popular Posts

• Viewed
• Commented
• Rated

Black history is American history.
Morgan Freeman

Dr. Martin Luther King is not a black hero. He is an American hero.
Morgan Freeman

There’s so much negative imagery of black fatherhood. I’ve got tons of friends that are doing the right thing by their kids, and doing the right thing as a father – and how come that’s not as newsworthy?
Will Smith

Me only have one ambition, y’know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together – black, white, Chinese, everyone – that’s all.
Bob Marley

I don’t stand for the black man’s side, I don’ t stand for the white man’s side. I stand for God’s side.
Bob Marley

Source: elev8.com

Most Popular Posts

• Viewed
• Commented
• Rated

Black history is American history.
Morgan Freeman

Dr. Martin Luther King is not a black hero. He is an American hero.
Morgan Freeman

There’s so much negative imagery of black fatherhood. I’ve got tons of friends that are doing the right thing by their kids, and doing the right thing as a father – and how come that’s not as newsworthy?
Will Smith

Me only have one ambition, y’know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together – black, white, Chinese, everyone – that’s all.
Bob Marley

I don’t stand for the black man’s side, I don’ t stand for the white man’s side. I stand for God’s side.
Bob Marley

Source: elev8.com

Most Popular Posts

• Viewed
• Commented
• Rated