Black sharecropper family in Little Rock, Arkansas one Sunday in 1935 Photo by Ben Sahn #incelebrationofblackhistory #ourhistoryeveryday #ourhistorythenandnow

Black sharecropper family in Little Rock, Arkansas one Sunday in 1935 Photo by Ben Sahn #incelebrationofblackhistory #ourhistoryeveryday #ourhistorythenandnow

Reposted from Instagram@africanarchives On March 5th, 1959, 69 African American boys, ages 13 to 17, were padlocked in their dormitory for the night at the Negro Boys Industrial School in Wrightsville. Around 4 a.m., a fire mysteriously ignited, forcing the boys to fight and claw their way out of the burning building. The old, run-down, & low-funded facility, just 15 minutes south of Little Rock, housed 69 teens from ages 13-17. Most were either homeless or incarcerated for petty crimes such as doing pranks. 48 boys managed to escape the fire. The doors were locked from the outside and fire mysteriously ignited on a cold, wet morning, following earlier thunderstorms in the same area of rural Pulaski County. The horrific event brought attention to the deplorable conditions in which the boys lived. The boys all slept in a space barely big enough for them to move around & theyre one foot apart from one another & their bathroom was a bucket at the corner where they had to defecate in. In an ironic twist, the land in which the school stood is now the Arkansas Department of Correction Facility Wrightsville Unit. In 2019 a plaque was finally placed after 60 years. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackHistory

Reposted from Instagram.com/blackhistoryunlocked 16-year-old Jimmy Web confronts police officer in 1965

You might have heard of Black Wall Street. Meet the founder, O.W. Gurley. In 1905 Gurley and his wife sold their property in Noble County and moved 80 miles to the oil boom town of Tulsa. Gurley purchased 40 acres of land in North Tulsa and established his first business, a rooming house on a dusty road that would become Greenwood Avenue. He subdivided his plot into residential and commercial lots and eventually opened a grocery store. As the community grew around him, Gurley prospered. Between 1910 and 1920, the Black population in the area he had purchased grew from 2,000 to nearly 9,000 in a city with a total population of 72,000. The Black community had a large working-class population as well as doctors, lawyers, and other professionals who provided services to them. Soon the Greenwood section was dubbed “Negro Wall Street” by Tuskegee educator Booker T. Washington. Greenwood, now called Black Wall Street, was nearly self-sufficient with Black-owned businesses, many initially financed by Gurley, ranging from brickyards and theaters to a chartered airplane company. Gurley built the Gurley Hotel at 112 N. Greenwood and rented out spaces to smaller businesses. His other properties included a two-story building at 119 N. Greenwood, which housed the Masonic Lodge and a Black employment agency. He was also one of the founders of Vernon AME Church. #History #BlackHistory