MY
W E E K L Y
W O R D
SPECIAL BLACK HISTORY MONTH EDITION
2.21.21
We are now in the final days of Black History Month 2021, and below is my continued recognition of select milestones...
BLACK HISTORY THIS WEEK... | 2/21 - 2/28
by Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely
(click on images for further details, with a new entry added each day)
February 21, 1940: Today is the birthday of my dear friend, John Lewis. He wasn't too much older than me at the time I joined SNCC. May his memory prompt all of us to get into "good trouble" by pressing our U.S. Senators & House Reps to pass a reconciled version of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act for President Biden to sign...
February 23, 1868: Legendary NAACP co-founder, W.E.B. DuBois was born in Great Barrington, MA, only 3 years after the Civil War ended... And as I've said/written "It Was Simply In My Blood", so it was for DuBois. He not only knew/worked with my great-uncle, William Monroe Trotter, but his own great-grandmother, Elizabeth Freeman, historically fought in court for her freedom from enslavement—and won.
February 25, 1870: Hiram Revels became our first Black U.S. Senator, representing Mississippi. To date we have only had 11 Black U.S. Senators–9 men and 2 women.
February 27, 1869: 93 years after the Declaration of Independence, John Menard became the 1st African American to address Congress to fight for his duly elected seat that was being challenged by a white opponent. Both were rejected. Keep in mind, this was also a day after the House passed the 15th Amendment on the right to vote.
February 22, 1915: Famed Congressman Robert Smalls of South Carolina passed away. However, he is also known for his daring escape from enslavement by commandeering a Confederate ship to the Union Army.
February 24, 1864: Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the 1st African American woman to receive an MD in the U.S. from the New England Female Medical College (it merged with the Boston University School of Medicine, therefore she's embraced as a BUSM alumna). This is an image from her 1883 tome, A Book of Medical Discourses, one of the earliest written by an African American doctor in the country (view it here).
February 26, 1869: Congress passed the 15th Amendment, sent to States for ratification to ensure all races the right to vote... I was led to SNCC due to ongoing attempts by states to thwart the 15th Amendment–that unfortunately, continues this day...
February 28, 1942: After being finally being allowed to move into the newly opened Sojourner Truth Homes following the government reversing an early ban, Black families were set to move in to the Homes until they were confronted by a white mob–in Detroit...The following year was the infamous Detroit Race Riots of 1943...
© 2021 Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely. All rights reserved.