Black Lives Matter
Injustice and Inequality in America
Queen Njinga
by Achille Devéria - http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portraitLarge/mw150782/Ann-Zingha Public Domain
The arrival of a slave ship carrying approximately 20 people, Africans from Angola, in August of 1619 to a port near Jamestown, Virginia marks the beginning of chattel slavery in what would become the United States. The enslaved Africans were likely forced to work the tobacco fields in the English Colony of Virginia (Elliott and Hughes, 2019).
Slavery has shaped and formed everyday American life. The 1619 Project by the New York Times Magazine explores the lingering effects. Resources from and within The 1619 Project are listed below:
Articles:
The Idea of America, by Nikole Hannah-Jones
Capitalism, by Matthew Desmond
A Broken Health Care System, by Jeneen Interlandi
Traffic, by Kevin M. Kruse
Undemocratic Democracy, by Jamelle Bouie
Medical Inequality, by Linda Villarosa
American Popular Music, by Wesley Morris
Sugar, by Khalil Gibran Muhammad
Mass Incarceration, by Bryan Stevenson
The Wealth Gap, by Trymaine Lee
Hope, a Photo Essay, by Djeneba Aduayom
400 Years: A Literary Timeline
Broadsheets
Why Can’t We Teach This? by Nikita Stewart (2019)
A Brief History of Slavery, by Mary Elliott and Jazmine Hughes (2019)
Audio
NPR (August 22, 2019). The 1619 Project. 1A. Interviews.
Museums
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. https://nmaahc.si.edu/
Image: U.S. Department of State
On June 19, 1865, word reached over 250,000 enslaved black people in Texas that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed by Abraham Lincoln more than two and half years earlier and that they were granted freedom. Union Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865 and read General Order Number 3 from various locations. General Order Number 3 stated that all enslaved persons were free and had absolute equality of personal rights. Juneteenth is celebrated as an annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.
Ellis, N. (2020). What Juneteenth tells us about the value of black life in America. The Washington Post.
Taylor, D. B. (June 19, 2020). So you want to learn about Juneteenth? The New York Times.
Galveston Historical Foundation (2020). Juneteenth and General Order No. 3.
The post-Civil War Reconstruction was a period when the nation attempted to reunify and realize equality for African Americans during the years 1863 - 1877.
- CUNY. American History: The Civil War and Reconstruction: Key Events and Figures of Reconstruction. (March 10, 2020). Library Guide.
- Guelzo, A. (April 30, 2018). Reconstruction Didn't Fail. It Was Overthrown. Time.
- PBS. (2019). Reconstruction: America After the Civil War. Four-hour dccumentary series presented by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
- The Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s - PBS"The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1866 by ex-Confederate soldiers and other Southerners opposed to Reconstruction after the Civil War....In its second resurgence, the Klan moved beyond just targeting blacks, and broadened its message of hate to include Catholics, Jews and foreigners."
- Jim Crow Laws and Racial Segregation - VCU Libraries"Immediately following the Civil War and adoption of the 13th Amendment, most states of the former Confederacy adopted Black Codes, laws modeled on former slave laws. These laws were intended to limit the new freedom of emancipated African Americans by restricting their movement and by forcing them into a labor economy based on low wages and debt."
- The Costs of the ConfederacyA special report by Smithsonian and the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute.
- U.S. Military effectively bans Confederate flag with new policyBBC report on the banning of confederate flags on US military properties.
- What Confederate Monuments Do"...they commemorate a history of how Confederate symbols have been mobilized as white backlash against the attainment of black civil liberties throughout this country’s post-Civil War era."
White mobs destroy Black Wall Street in Tulsa, OK 1921.
- Tulsa Searches For Victims of 1921 Race Massacre At New SiteThe City of Tulsa is leading its second excavation this year, to try to determine where the estimated 150 to 300 victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre were buried.
- The Massacre of Black Wall StreetIn 1921, an entire black business district and surrounding neighborhood was destroyed by white rioters. As many as 300 black Tulsans were killed, over 9,000 residents were left homeless, 1,200 buildings were destroyed, and $50-100 million dollars of property damage has never been repaid. The story was actively suppressed for 50 years.
Redlining was the practice of drawing red lines on maps around predominately black neighborhoods. Between 1933 and 1977, the government-sponsored Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) used them to avoid investment in these neighborhoods. The evidence of this practice is documented by the Mapping Inequality project at the University of Richmond. Digitized scans of the HOLC redlining maps are held in the National Archives. Below is a redlining map of Phoenix.
- The Wealth Gap Facing Black Americans Is Vast—and Vastly Underestimated - Yale Insights"For every $100 in wealth held by a White family, a Black family has just $10."
- How You Can Invest in Racial Justice - Yale Insights"A history of discrimination and inequality has led to dramatic gaps in wealth, investment, and income between white communities and minority communities."
The ASU Library acknowledges the twenty-three Native Nations that have inhabited this land for centuries. Arizona State University's four campuses are located in the Salt River Valley on ancestral territories of Indigenous peoples, including the Akimel O’odham (Pima) and Pee Posh (Maricopa) Indian Communities, whose care and keeping of these lands allows us to be here today. ASU Library acknowledges the sovereignty of these nations and seeks to foster an environment of success and possibility for Native American students and patrons. We are advocates for the incorporation of Indigenous knowledge systems and research methodologies within contemporary library practice. ASU Library welcomes members of the Akimel O’odham and Pee Posh, and all Native nations to the Library.
