100 Black Men of America—an African American men’s civic organization and service club, founded in 1963, whose stated goal is to educate and empower African American children and teens; their motto is, “What They See Is What They’ll Be.”
1921 Tulsa Race Massacre—a two-day-long attack on the Greenwood District in Tulsa, OK, a community known at that time as the “Black Wall Street” and one of the wealthiest African American communities in America.
40 Acres and a Mule—a wartime order proclaimed by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman during the Civil War promising land to freed families, which created the widespread expectation they would have the right to own the land they had been forced to work as enslaved people; under President Andrew Jackson the government reneged on this promise and others.
Aaron McGruder (b. 1974)—writer, cartoonist, and producer best known for creating The Boondocks, a comic strip and TV series.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)—16th U.S. president from 1861-1865; leader of the Union during the Civil War.
Absalom Jones (1746-1818)—a prominent abolitionist and clergyman in Philadelphia, PA; founder of the first Black Episcopal congregation and the first African American to be ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church.
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (1908-1972)—pastor, activist, and U.S. Representative for Harlem, NY, from 1945-1971; the first African American to be elected to Congress from New York, as well as the first from a Northeast state.
Affordable Care Act (2010)—an overhaul and expansion of the U.S. healthcare system, designed to provide coverage to more people, lower costs, and improve quality; colloquially known as Obamacare.
African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME)—a predominantly African American Methodist denomination, and the first independent Protestant denomination to be founded (led by Richard Allen in 1816) by Black people; to this day remains one of the largest Methodist denominations in the world.
The Afro-American—a newspaper group founded in 1892 by John H. Murphy, Sr., a formerly enslaved man, which at one time published in 13 different editions across the country (including Baltimore, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Richmond, and Newark) and continues to this day.
Afro-American Association—an organization founded in 1962 at UC Berkeley, originally as a study group, which was hugely influential for the Black Power movement; Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale were both members.
Al Green (b. 1946)—singer, songwriter, pastor, and record producer.
Alamo Theatre—a theatre in the Farish Street District in Jackson, MS, which was a neighborhood known as the Black Mecca of Mississippi before desegregation.
Alice Walker (b. 1944)—Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and social activist; author of The Color Purple.
Alvin Ailey (1931-1989)—dancer, director, choreographer, and activist who, together with a group of young African American modern dancers, founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and later School in New York City; one of the most influential figures in 20th-century modern dance.
Amsterdam News—a weekly Black-owned newspaper based in Harlem and serving New York City, founded in 1909 by James H. Anderson.
Andrew Jackson (1767-1845)—7th U.S. President from 1829-1837; slaveholder.
Anita Hill (b. 1956)—lawyer, educator, and author, and professor at Brandeis University; she became a national figure in 1991 when she accused then-U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, her former boss at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, of sexual harassment.
Apollo Theater—music hall and performance venue for African American performers in Harlem, NY; first opened in 1913.
ASCORE (Ashville Student Commission on Racial Equality)—an organization founded by Civil Rights leaders in Asheville, in 1960, to push for the integration of public spaces and better jobs for Black people in Western NC. [Author’s note: My grandfather, Rev. Nilous Avery, was an advisor and mentor for ASCORE, opening the doors of Hill Street Baptist Church for the students to meet.]
Atlanta Daily World—the oldest Black newspaper in Atlanta, GA and the first Black daily newspaper; founded in 1928.
Baptist—one of the most prominent branches of Protestant Christianity; characterized by only baptizing professing believers, with complete immersion, as well as a broad diversity of belief between churches.
Barbara Brandon-Croft (b. 1958)—cartoonist best known for Where I’m Coming From, the first national syndicated strip from an African American female cartoonist; daughter of Brumsic Brandon, Jr.
Billie Holiday (1915-1959)—jazz and swing singer.
Billy Graham (1918-2018)—white evangelist and Southern Baptist minister; he insisted on racial integration for his revivals and crusades starting in 1953.
The Birth of a Nation—a 1915 silent film about the Civil War and Reconstruction, noted for its technical innovations, historical inaccuracies, and racist depictions of Black people; enormously popular with white audiences upon release, it is credited with inspiring the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan.
Black Belt—a region of dark, fertile soil in the South, mostly Alabama and Mississippi; has also been used to describe areas of the South with a majority Black population.
Black Church—the faith and body of Christian congregations and denominations, primarily Protestant, which minister predominantly to African Americans. There are various denominations, including Baptist, African Methodist Episcopal, and Pentecostal, but most Black churches follow Black Liberation Theology doctrine. Rooted in activism, Black Liberation Theology aims to empower churchgoers, and make the gospel relevant to the struggles of African Americans.
Black Codes—restrictive laws which governed the conduct of African Americans both before and after the Civil War.
Black Greek letter organizations—historical African American fraternities and sororities, known collectively as the Divine Nine, and the National Pan-Hellenic Council; the Nine consist of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity (founded 1906, Cornell University); Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority (1908, Howard University); Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity (1911, Indiana University); Omega Psi Phi (1911, Howard University); Delta Sigma Theta Sorority (1913, Howard University); Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity (1914, Howard University); Zeta Phi Beta Sorority (1920, Howard University); Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority (1922, Butler University); and Iota Phi Theta Fraternity (1963, Morgan State University)
Black Panther Party—a widely popular and influential Black Power political organization in the late 1960s and early 70s, founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, CA in 1966.
Black Power—a movement that began in the early 1960s and which advocated for Black pride, economic independence, and new social and cultural institutions for Black people, which did not necessarily seek to integrate with white society.
Bloody Sunday—the first of three Civil Rights marches in 1965 along the highway from Selma, AL, to the state capital of Montgomery, with the aim of demonstrating the desire of African American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote; the march was assaulted by Alabama state police officers, drawing national attention and outrage, and helping lead to the passage of the Voting Rights Act later that year.
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)—educator, author, speaker, and advisor to several U.S. presidents; born into slavery, he became a leading intellectual of his time, and founded the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University) and the National Negro Business League; in contrast to W.E.B. Du Bois, he advocated for agricultural and technical education and self-help, racial solidarity, and relative accommodation with the white majority.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)— U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional; helped establish the precedent of the illegality of the “separate but equal” doctrine.
Brumsic Brandon, Jr. (1927-2014)—educator, artist, essayist, and civil rights activist who created comic strips for over six decades, most famously Luther, one of the earliest mainstream comics to star an African American character; father of Barbara Brandon-Croft.
Bud Biliken Parade—an annual public procession in Chicago, IL, at the end of summer, begun in 1929 by Robert S. Abbot, founder of the Chicago Defender; the largest African American parade in the U.S.
Bull Connor (1897-1973)—politician and white supremacist who served as Commissioner of Public Safety for Birmingham, AL, for more than two decades; most infamous for using fire hoses and attack dogs against civil rights activists.
Cain and Abel—in the Book of Genesis in the Bible, the first two sons of Adam and Eve; when God favors Abel instead of Cain, Cain murders Abel, and God condemns Cain to a life of exile.
Carnegie Hall—concert venue in Midtown Manhattan, opened in 1891.
Charlottesville Unite the Right rally—a white supremacist rally that took place in Charlottesville, VA, in August 2017.
Chattel slavery—the form of slavery where enslaved people are the personal property of their owners and may be bought, sold, and owned forever; the form of slavery practiced on Black people in America.
Chicago Defender—an African American newspaper founded in 1905; from 1956-2003 published daily as the Chicago Daily Defender.
Chitlin’ Circuit—a group of performance venues in the East, South, and Midwest for African American musicians, comedians, and other performers during the era of racial segregation; venues included the Regal in Chicago, the Royal in Baltimore, the Howard in DC, the Apollo in Harlem, and others.
Civil Rights Act (1964)—a civil rights and labor law which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, and later sexual orientation and gender identity; one of the primary achievements of the Civil Rights Movement.
Civil Rights Movement—the movement in the 1950s and 60s, preceded by similar campaigns in previous decades, by African Americans and allies to end legalized racial discrimination, disenfranchisement, and racial segregation in the U.S.
Civil War—the war fought from 1861-1865 between the Union (the North) and the Confederacy (the South); the central cause of the war was slavery, and the dispute of its expansion into new western states, leading to more slave states, or its prevention from doing so, which was widely believed would eventually extinguish slavery.
Clarence Thomas (b. 1948)—longest-serving current Supreme Court justice and the second African American to serve on the Court; an originalist and considered to be the Court’s most conservative member.
Clark Atlanta University—an HBCU in Atlanta, GA, formed with the consolidation of Atlanta University (founded in 1865 by the American Missionary Association, and the nation’s first institution to award graduate degrees to African Americans) and Clark College (founded in 1869, and the nation’s first four-year liberal arts college to serve a primarily African American student population).
Clinton, Mississippi Riot (1875)—a riot started during a political rally for Charles Caldwell, a formerly enslaved person and Republican state senator, which resulted in the deaths of at least four white people and five Black people but which was followed by vigilante violence against more Black people in the ensuing days, resulting in the deaths of at least 50 African Americans; the riot served as a pretext for the end of Reconstruction in Mississippi.
Colored—racial descriptor used in the U.S. during the Jim Crow era to refer to an African American.
Communism—a form of socialism whose goal is a society with common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money, and state.
Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)—a federal law enacted in 1977 that requires the Federal Reserve and other federal banking regulators to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to help meet the credit needs of all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods; was designed to curb redlining.
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)—a civil rights organization founded in 1942 by an interracial group of students in Chicago, IL; pioneered the use of nonviolent direct action and played a pivotal role in the Civil Rights Movement.
Cross burning—a practice associated with the Ku Klux Klan, designed to intimidate and threaten Black and other non-white people; was most likely inspired by a scene in The Birth of a Nation.
Crusade for Voters—an organization founded in 1956 to increase voter registration and political awareness, provide candidate recommendations, and push for equal political job opportunities for the Black Richmond community.
Curse of Ham—a reference to Genesis 9 in the Bible, which describes an instance of Noah cursing his son Ham’s descendants to be slaves; in later centuries, the narrative was incorrectly interpreted by some as an explanation for dark skin, as well as a justification for slavery of Black people.
Curtis J. Holt, Sr. (1920-unknown)—a social activist in Richmond, VA, who led campaigns on issues of both race and class.
David and Goliath—the battle between the Philistine giant, Goliath, and a young David, as described in the Book of Samuel in the Bible.
Diane Nash (b. 1938)—Civil Rights activist whose work included co-founding the SNCC, leading the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, and helping guide the Freedom Riders; was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022.
Dillard University—an HBCU in New Orleans, LA, founded in 1930 and incorporating earlier institutions of higher learning founded as early as 1869.
“Dixie” (song)—first made in 1859, a song about the South that became the unofficial anthem of the Confederacy; has remained popular with some white Southerners into modern times; “Dixie” has also since become a nickname for the South.
Douglas Wilder (b. 1931)—a lawyer and politician who served as Governor of Virginia from 1990-1994; the first African American to serve as governor of a U.S. state since Reconstruction.
Dunbar Theatre—first opened in 1916, the first African American-owned theatre to operate in Baltimore; closed in 1958.
Earl Theatre—first built in 1924, a prominent theatre in Philadelphia, PA for big band jazz music in the 1930s and 40s; closed in 1953.
Ebony—a monthly magazine founded in 1945 by John H. Johnson (also the founder of Jet magazine and Negro Digest/Black World), focused on news, culture, and entertainment for a Black audience.
Emancipation Proclamation (1863)—a proclamation and executive order by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1st, 1863, during the Civil War, that declared all enslaved persons in the secessionist states to be free; also allowed for formerly enslaved people to be received into the armed services of the United States; its issuance redefined the Civil War for the North as a fight for freedom.
Emmett Till (1941-1955)—a 14-year-old African American boy who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955; his murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted drew nationwide attention to the racial violence and injustice prevalent in the South and galvanized many African Americans to join the Civil Rights Movement.
Episcopal—a mainline Protestant denomination, first organized after the American Revolution, and part of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)—a federal agency established via the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to administer and enforce federal civil rights laws against workplace discrimination.
Ernie Green (b. 1941)—a member of the Little Rock Nine.
Fair Housing Act (1968)—a federal law, signed by Lyndon B. Johnson during the Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination riots, that prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, or sex; considered the final great legislative achievement of the Civil Rights Movement.
Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977)—a civil rights activist at the forefront of the Movement in Mississippi; worked with SNCC to organize the 1964 Freedom Summer voter registration drive in the state; at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, was vice-chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, who openly challenged the legality of the state’s all-white, segregated delegation.
Farm Service Agency—an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that supports farms and farming communities.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)—an independent agency created by Congress during the Great Depression to maintain stability and public trust in the nation’s financial system (by insuring deposits, examining and supervising financial institutions, etc).
Federal Home Loan Bank Board—a board created in 1932 that governed the Federal Home Loan Banks, the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, and nationally-chartered thrifts; it was abolished and superseded by the Federal Housing Finance Board and the Office of Thrift Supervision in 1989.
Fillmore District—historical neighborhood in San Francisco, CA, that was a hub for many different ethnic groups, including African Americans; the center of the music scene in the city, especially jazz; became a target of urban renewal which led to the removal of many Black residents after the 1960s.
Fisk University—an HBCU in Nashville, TN, founded in 1866, shortly after the Civil War; the oldest institution of higher learning in the city.
Florida A&M University—an HBCU in Tallahassee, FL, founded in 1887; the first modern HBCU marching band, the Marching “100”, was created here in 1946.
Ford Motor Company—automobile manufacturer founded in 1903 and headquartered in Dearborn, MI (near Detroit); jobs like those at Ford were a major reason many African Americans moved North during the Great Migration.
Fort Valley State University—an HBCU in Fort Valley, GA, founded in 1895.
Fourteenth Amendment (1868)—the Constitutional amendment which granted citizenship to all persons “born or naturalized in the United States,” including formerly enslaved people, and provided all citizens with “equal protection under the laws,” extending the provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states, among other rulings; also gave Congress the power to enforce this amendment, which eventually led to the passage of the landmark Civil Rights legislation a century later.
Frederick Douglass (1817/1818–1895)—a social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman; after escaping slavery in Maryland, he became one of the principal leaders of the abolitionist movement, and after the Civil War continued to push efforts for racial equality and later women’s rights; author of numerous notable autobiographies and speeches.
Freedmen (Native American)—formerly enslaved African Americans of the Five Tribes of Oklahoma in the Southeastern U.S. (the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Muskogee, and Seminole Nations); citizenship status within these tribes has been largely denied to Freedmen ever since; the term also applies to their descendants.
Freedom Riders—groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in bus trips (Freedom Rides) through the American South in 1961 to protest segregated buses and bus terminals.
G.I. Bill (1944)—colloquial name for the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, passed to provide benefits to WWII veterans including low-cost mortgages, low-interest loans, and educational benefits; Black veterans experienced discrimination in the distribution of these benefits, but nonetheless the bill helped expand the population of African Americans attending college and graduate school.
George Herriman (1880-1944)—cartoonist of mixed-race Creole descent, best known for the comic strip Krazy Kat.
George Wallace (1919-1998)—politician who served as governor of Alabama for four terms in the 1960s-80s; staunch supporter of Jim Crow laws.
Golden Frinks (1920-2004)—civil rights activist and field secretary of the SCLC; the principal organizer in North Carolina during the 1960s, known as “The Great Agitator.”
Gone With the Wind—a 1939 film, based on the 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell, that is the highest-grossing (adjusting for inflation) in history; it has been criticized for glorifying slavery and the mythology of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.
Great Debaters of Wiley College—the debate team of Wiley College, founded and coached by Melvin B. Tolson in 1924, which traveled around the country and was a pioneer in interracial collegiate debates; in 1935, they defeated the national champion debate team from the University of Southern California; James Farmer was a prominent team member.
Great Migration—the relocation of more than 6 million African Americans from the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest, and West from about 1916-1970, driven by Jim Crow and the attraction of jobs.
Gwen Ifill (1955-2016)—journalist, newscaster, and author; the first African American woman to host a nationally televised U.S. public affairs program.
Hampton University—an HBCU in Hampton, VA, founded in 1868 as Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School.
Harlem—neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, NYC; it became a major destination for Black Americans during the Great Migration and has remained a center of Black American cultural life to this day.
Harlem Renaissance—an intellectual and cultural revival of African American arts, politics, and scholarship, centered in Harlem, NY, from roughly the end of WWI (1917) to the onset of the Great Depression and WWII (1930s); also known as the Black Renaissance.
HBCU marching bands—marching bands at HBCU schools, which have formed their own particular styles and traditions since the 1940s and are often centers of school cultural life and ambassadors for schools outside of campus.
Henry Leander Marsh III (b. 1933)—civil rights lawyer and politician; first African American mayor of Richmond, VA.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (b. 1950)—literary critic, scholar, professor, historian, and filmmaker.
Hill Street Baptist Church—started in 1915 in Asheville, NC; when led by Reverend E.W. Dixon, published and distributed one of the first black newspapers in Asheville, The Church Advocate; was led by Reverend Nilous McKinley and Mrs. Christine Watson Avery for decades [Author’s note: My grandparents!].
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)—institutions of higher learning that were established before the Civil Rights Act (1964) with the intention of primarily serving the African American community; many of these schools were founded in the decades after the Civil War and are located in the South.
Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (1975)—a law requiring many financial institutions to provide mortgage data to the public, to ensure they are serving the housing needs of communities and to shed light on lending patterns that could be discriminatory.
Howard Theatre—a theatre in Washington, DC, founded in 1910 and continuing to this day; billed as the “Theatre for the People,” it was known for catering to an African American clientele and featured many top musical acts in its heyday.
Howard University—an HBCU in Washington, DC, founded in 1867.
Huey P. Newton (1942-1989)—co-founder and Minister of Defense for the Black Panther Party.
Integration—the process of leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunities regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely bringing a racial minority into the majority one; includes the process of desegregation, but desegregation is considered largely a legal matter, whereas integration largely a social one.
Jackie Ormes (1911-1985)—cartoonist known for characters such as Torchy Brown, Candy, Patty-Jo, and Ginger, which countered stereotypical images of Black Americans in the mainstream press; the first African American woman to have a regularly published comic strip.
James Brown (1933-2006)—entertainer, record producer, and bandleader.
James Farmer (1920-1999)—leader in the Civil Rights Movement who co-founded CORE and initiated and organized the first Freedom Ride.
Jeanes supervisors—a group of African American teachers who worked in southern rural schools and communities between 1908-1968; established by white Quaker philanthropist Anna T. Jeanes and Booker T. Washington.
Jet—a weekly magazine founded in 1951 by John H. Johnson (also the founder of Ebony magazine and Negro Digest/Black World) focused on news, culture, and entertainment for a Black audience; the magazine was notable for its coverage of the Civil Rights movement, including the murder of Emmett Till, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the activities of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Jim Crow laws—state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the South; generally these laws were ended by the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and Voting Rights Act in 1965; the name derives from the song “Jump Jim Crow,” performed in blackface by white actor Thomas D. Rice beginning in 1828, which led to the term “Jim Crow” becoming a pejorative term for Black Americans in the 19th century.
John and Jane Doe warrants—a warrant for the arrest of a person whose name is unknown.
John Chavis (1763-1838)—minister, teacher, abolitionist, and the first African American to graduate from a college or university in the U.S.; he founded a school in Raleigh, NC, in 1808 that taught Black and white children.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)—35th U.S. president from 1961-1963.
John Lee Hooker (1917-2001)—blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist.
John Lewis (1940-2020)—politician and civil rights activist who was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement—participating in the Nashville sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, the March on Washington, Bloody Sunday, and as chairman of the SNCC—and served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 17 terms.
Johnson Publishing—a media company founded in 1942 by John H. Johnson (1918-2005) in Chicago, IL, that published notable African American magazines like Ebony, Jet, and Negro Digest (later Black World).
Juilliard School—performing arts conservatory in New York City.
Julian Bond (1940-2015)—civil rights activist, politician, professor, and writer who helped establish the SNCC and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Krystal’s—fast food restaurant chain based in the Southeast.
Ku Klux Klan (KKK)—white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group; has existed in three primary periods (during the Reconstruction Era; in the 1910s-20s; and in the early 1940s-60s).
Langston Hughes (1901-1967)—poet, novelist, and playwright; prominent figure of the Harlem Renaissance.
Langston University—an HBCU in Langston, OK; the only HBCU in the state.
“Lift Every Voice and Sing”—a hymn with lyrics by James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) and set to music by his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954); after its first recitation in 1900, the hymn was communally sung within African American communities, and in 1917, the NAACP began promoting it as the “Negro National Anthem.”
Literacy tests—tests which claimed to create an educated and informed electorate, but in practice, especially in the South, were used to prevent African Americans particularly from registering to vote.
Little Rock Nine—the nine teenagers who were the first African American students to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957 following Brown v. The Board of Education in 1954; the resistance of white mobs drew national attention and eventually the U.S. Army and National Guard to protect the students.
Los Angeles Sentinel—Black-owned weekly newspaper established in 1933.
Lynching—the extrajudicial killing of someone by a group; in the U.S., during the period between Reconstruction up until the Civil Rights Era, thousands of African Americans were lynched in a widespread campaign of racial terror designed to enforce subordination and segregation.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973)—36th U.S. president from 1963-1969; signed many of the principal civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (which included the Fair Housing Act).
Malcolm X (1925-1965)—a primary leader of the Black Power movement, initially within the Nation of Islam, who advocated for liberation “by any means necessary.”
Manpower Development and Training Act (1962)—legislation designed to train and retrain thousands of workers unemployed because of technological change.
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963)—a massive protest march for Black civil and economic rights involving some 250,000 people; helped lead to the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
Margaret Bonds (1913-1972)—composer, pianist, arranger, and teacher; one of the first African American composers to gain recognition in the U.S.; frequently collaborated with Langston Hughes (for ex, the cantata The Ballad of the Brown King); daughter of Monroe Alpheus Majors.
Martha’s Vineyard—an island off the coast of Massachusetts that is a popular summer destination with a long-standing Black community.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)—minister and activist; the most prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement and practitioner of nonviolent civil disobedience.
Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955)—educator, civil and women’s rights leader, government official, and advisor to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt; founder of the National Council of Negro Women and the school that eventually became Bethune-Cookman University.
Mason-Dixon Line—the demarcation line between the states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia; informally the demarcation between the North and South.
Maxine Waters (b. 1938)—politician who has served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 15 terms; the most senior of the 12 Black women serving in Congress.
Medgar Evers (1925-1963)—civil rights activist and the NAACP’s first field officer in Mississippi; led an investigation into the murder of Emmett Till; himself murdered by a white supremacist and member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Melvin B. Tolson (1898-1966)—poet, professor, and essayist; coached the Great Debaters of Wiley College.
Melvyn R. Leventhal (b. 1943)—white Jewish lawyer who worked for the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement; together with Alice Walker was the first legally married interracial couple in the state.
Methodist—a mainline group of Protestant denominations following the teachings of John Wesley, first begun in the early 18th-century.
Metropolitan Opera House—opera house on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
Milton Caniff (1907-1988)—white cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.
Mississippi Delta—the northwestern portion of the state of Mississippi (and actually the delta of the Yazoo River); some of the most fertile agricultural land in the world.
Mississippi Valley State University—an HBCU in Itta Bena, MS, founded in 1950.
Monroe Alpheus Majors (1864-1960)—physician, civil rights leader, and writer, and the first Black physician to practice medicine west of the Rocky Mountains; author of Noted Negro Women, a book of biographies; father of Margaret Bonds.
Morehouse College—an HBCU in Atlanta, GA, founded in 1867; the largest men’s liberal arts college in the U.S.
Morgan State University—an HBCU in Baltimore, MD, founded in 1867 as Morgan College.
Morrie Turner (1923-2014)—cartoonist most famous for the creation of Wee Pals, the first American syndicated strip with an integrated cast of characters.
Motortown Revue—the package concert tours given by Motown Records musical artists throughout the U.S. in the 1960s.
Mulatto—a person of mixed white and Black ancestry.
Murder of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner—the murder of three civil rights activists who had been working on the Freedom Summer campaign to register African American voters in Mississippi; the three men—one Black, two white and Jewish—were killed by the Ku Klux Klan.
National Archives—a federal agency charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)—an organization founded in 1909 to address ongoing violence and discrimination against Black people; a prominent group during the Civil Rights Movement through the present.
National Conference of Christians and Jews (NCCJ)—a social justice organization founded in 1927; their name was changed in the 1990s to the National Conference for Community and Justice to better reflect the breadth and depth of its mission.
National Urban League—a civil rights organization founded in 1910 and based in New York City, dedicated to economic empowerment, equality, and social justice for African Americans and other historically underserved groups; the oldest and largest community-based organization of its kind.
Negro Digest—a publication founded in 1942 by John H. Johnson (also the publisher of Jet and Ebony magazines) seeking to evoke the format of Reader’s Digest for a Black audience; in its heyday was a major forum for black writers and intellectuals; later known as Black World.
Negro Motorist Green Book—a guidebook published from the 1930s-60s, originated and published by Harlem mailman Victor Hugo Green (1892-1960), that provided a list of hotels, boarding houses, taverns, restaurants, service stations, and other establishments throughout the country that served African American patrons; an indispensable resource for the era’s successful Black-owned businesses and rising Black middle class.
New Journal and Guide—newspaper based in Norfolk, VA, founded in 1900, focusing on local and national African American news, sports and issues; formerly called the Journal and Guide and the Norfolk Journal and Guide; at one point during WWII was the largest Black employer in the South.
Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971)—leader of the Soviet Union from 1953-1964.
Nonviolent civil disobedience—the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws or commands in order to effect change; the primary tactic of the Civil Rights Movement.
Normal school—an institution created to train teachers, usually for primary schools.
North Carolina A&T State University—an HBCU in Greensboro, NC, founded in 1891 as the Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race; the largest HBCU in the U.S.
North Carolina Central University—an HBCU in Durham, NC, founded in 1909.
The O’Jays—R&B group, originally formed in 1958.
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency—an independent bureau in the U.S. Treasury that charters, regulates, and supervises all national banks, federal savings associations, and federal branches and agencies of foreign banks.
Oklahoma Eagle—Black-owned newspaper founded in 1922 and based in Tulsa, OK; successor to the Tulsa Star, which burned in the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, and one of the only newspapers to report on the event.
Ollie Harrington (1912-1995)—political cartoonist and advocate for civil rights; his most famous comic strip was Dark Laughter (later renamed Bootsie after the popular main character), the first Black comic strip to receive national recognition.
Oral tradition—a form of communication that passes knowledge, art, ideas, and cultural material orally from one generation to the other, either without or parallel to a writing system.
Passing—when a member of one racial group is accepted or perceived as a member of another; usually used to describe a Black or brown person passing amongst the white majority.
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)—poet, novelist, and short story writer; one of the first African American writers to achieve international renown.
Peg Leg Bates (1907-1998)—dancer and entertainer.
Perry Mason—fictional criminal defense lawyer of books, TV shows, movies, and radio, known for his decency and honesty.
Philadelphia Tribune—oldest continuously published African American newspaper in the U.S.
Pittsburgh Courier— African American weekly newspaper that published from 1907-1966, then re-opened by John H. Sengstacke (1912-1997; also the owner of the Chicago Defender) in 1967 as the New Pittsburgh Courier.
Players—a magazine from 1973-2005 that aimed to be the “Black Playboy.”
Plessy v Ferguson (1896)—U.S. Supreme Court decision which upheld racial segregation laws provided that facilities for each race were equal in quality, leading to the “separate but equal” doctrine; the case stemmed from Homer Plessy, a mixed-race man, deliberately boarding a “whites-only” train car in New Orleans, LA.
Poll tax—a payment required for voting, often used to restrict voting rights; abolished by the 24th Amendment in 1964 and a later decision by the Supreme Court in 1966.
Poor People’s Campaign—a 1968 effort, led by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the SCLC, seeking economic justice for poor people in the United States; King embarked upon the campaign after seeing that gains in civil rights had not improved the material conditions of life for many African Americans; after King’s assassination, the campaign was led by Ralph Abernathy.
Presbyterian—part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism, with roots in the 16th-century teachings of John Calvin and John Knox.
Pullman porters—men hired to work as porters—assisting passengers—on railway sleeping cars operated by the Pullman Company; from the late 1860s till the 1960s, Pullman porters were exclusively Black, and helped contribute to the development of an African American middle class; the porters also formed the first all-Black union in 1925.
PWI (predominantly white institution)—an institution of higher learning in which white people account for 50% or greater of the student enrollment.
Ralph Abernathy (1926-1990)—minister and civil rights activist; close friend and mentor of Martin Luther King, Jr.; helped lead the Montgomery bus boycott, co-created the SCLC, and was president of the SCLC and led the Poor People’s Campaign after King’s assassination.
Raphael Warnock (b. 1969)—pastor and politician; current junior U.S. Senator from Georgia.
Ray Billingsley (b. 1957)—cartoonist and creator of the Curtis comic strip.
Reconstruction Era (1865-1877)—the turbulent era following the Civil War that involved the effort to integrate the former Confederate states and the 4 million newly freed African Americans into the U.S.
Red Cross—international non-profit humanitarian organization.
Redistricting—the process of redrawing the lines for voting districts in a given area; when done to favor a particular party or demographic, known as gerrymandering.
Redlining—discriminatory practice in which services (i.e. credit, insurance, healthcare, etc) are withheld from potential customers who reside in neighborhoods classified as “hazardous” to investment; the term originates from government homeownership programs that used color-coded maps to rank the loan worthiness of neighborhoods and discriminated against Black neighborhoods.
Regal Theater—a night club, theater, and music venue in Chicago popular among African Americans from 1928-1968.
Resolution Trust Corporation—a temporary federal agency from 1989-1995 that helped resolve the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s.
Richard Pryor (1940-2005)—stand-up comedian and actor.
Ron Brown (1941-1996)—politician who served as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the U.S. Secretary of Commerce during Bill Clinton’s first term, the first African American to serve in either position; killed in a plane crash in Croatia in 1996.
Rosenwald school building program—a project that led to the construction of over 5,000 schools, shops, and teacher homes to educate African American children in the South; begun in 1913 by Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932), the latter a white Jewish businessman then the head of Sears, Roebuck & Company; by 1928, Rosenwald Schools made up more than one in five Black schools operating throughout the South.
Royal Theatre—theatre and music venue in Baltimore for Black audiences; first opened as the Douglass Theatre in 1922 and closed in 1971.
Samuel Houston (1793-1863)—Texas general and statesman; slaveholder.
Sanford and Son—TV sitcom that ran from 1972-1977.
School-to-prison pipeline—education and public safety policies that push students into the criminal legal system; also refers to the disproportionate tendency of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds to become incarcerated because of increasingly harsh school and municipal policies.
Segregation—the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life, in realms such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation; in the context of the U.S., refers primarily to the separation between white and Black people.
Separate but equal—the legal doctrine that racial segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment as long as all facilities provided were equal; in effect following the Civil War and confirmed by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896); in practice, the separate facilities provided to African Americans were rarely equal, and usually were not even close or did not exist at all.
Sharecropping—a system where the landlord allows a tenant to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop produced; in the South, implemented after the Civil War by white landowners to farm crops like cotton and tobacco; many Black Americans were severely limited by this system.
Shaw University—an HBCU in Raleigh, NC, founded in 1865; the oldest HBCU to begin offering classes in the South.
Sit-ins—a form of nonviolent direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change; during the Civil Rights Movement, many sit-ins were performed at lunch counters and other establishments to protest segregation.
Smithsonian Institution—the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex, based in Washington, DC.
Social Security—social insurance program consisting of retirement, disability, and survivor benefits.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)—a civil rights organization founded by Martin Luther King, Jr. and others following the Montgomery bus boycott in 1957 to coordinate nonviolent direct action throughout the South, drawing especially on the support of the Black church.
Southern Regional Council—a reform-oriented organization based in Atlanta, GA, and founded in 1944 which seeks to promote voter registration, political awareness, and racial equality.
Spelman College—a historically women’s HBCU in Atlanta, GA, founded in 1881 as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary.
Spirituals—genre of Christian music by Black Americans dating back to the era of slavery, combining African musical traditions and European Christian hymns (e.g. “Steal Away” and “Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray”); originally passed down as an oral tradition and brought to a wider audience by groups like the Fisk Jubilee Singers and the Hampton Singers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; many subsequent genres of music derive from it, i.e. blues, gospel, and jazz, and consequently R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, hip hop, etc.
Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes—a government system for classifying industries.
Stephens-Lee High School—a school for African American students and pillar of the Black community in Asheville, NC; first opened in 1923 and closed in 1965.
Stillman College—an HBCU in Tuscaloosa, AL, founded in 1875 as the Tuscaloosa Institute.
Stokely Carmichael (1941-1998; later known as Kwame Ture)—prominent leader within the Civil Rights and Black Power movements; succeeded John Lewis as the leader of SNCC.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)—the principal group for students participating in the Civil Rights Movement; emerged from student-led sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Greensboro, NC, and Nashville, TN.
Talented tenth—a term associated with W. E. B. Du Bois, referring to a Black intellectual elite who might acquire education and become directly involved in social change for the entire race.
Ted Shearer (1919-1992)—cartoonist and advertising art director who created the Quincy comic strip, one of the first mainstream comics with an African American lead.
Tennessee State University—an HBCU in Nashville, TN, founded in 1912; known earlier as Tennessee A&I State College.
Vernon Jordan (1935-2021)—civil rights attorney and business executive who participated in the Civil Rights Movement and eventually became a close advisor to Bill Clinton.
Virginia State University—an HBCU in Ettrick, VA, founded in 1882.
Virginia Union University—an HBCU in Richmond, VA, founded in 1865 as the Richmond Theological Institute.
Voting Rights Act (1965)—a law enacted in 1965 that prohibited racial discrimination in voting; a major achievement of the Civil Rights Movement.
W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963)—sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist; co-founder of the NAACP and the Niagara Movement; author of The Souls of Black Folk, Dusk of Dawn, and Black Reconstruction in America among other works; in contrast with Booker T. Washington, he advocated for political action, protest, and a civil rights agenda, and the importance of developing a Black intellectual elite.
Watch Night—late-night Christian service held on New Year’s Eve; in the Black Church, the tradition stretches back to the night of December 31st, 1862, when congregants awaited the news of the Emancipation Proclamation taking effect.
West Hunter Street Baptist Church—prominent church in Atlanta, GA, founded in 1881.
Wiley College—an HBCU in Marshall, TX, founded in 1873.
Wiley Immanuel Lash (1908-1995)—first Black mayor of Salisbury, NC.
Will Eisner (1917-2005)—white cartoonist who created the series The Spirit and pioneered the graphic novel form.
William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951)—white businessman, politician, and newspaper publisher who founded Hearst Communications.
Willie Lynch letter—also known as the “Willie Lynch speech,” an address purportedly delivered by a slaveholder named William Lynch in Virginia in 1712, regarding the best means of control of enslaved people within the colony (setting them against each other); since proven to be a hoax.
Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)—28th U.S. President from 1913-1921, the first Southerner to be elected since Zachary Taylor in 1848; supporter of racial segregation and the Lost Cause mythology.
Woolworth’s—chain of retail five-and-dime stores that were among the most successful and prevalent in America in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)—author, anthropologist, and filmmaker; central figure in the Harlem Renaissance; author of Their Eyes Were Watching God.