(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Street Prophets Coffee Hour: The small histories for Black History Month; February 1 World Hijab Day [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-01
Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour, where politics meets up with religion, science, art, life—and history. Come in, have a cuppa and a cookie (or three!) and join us.
It’s the first day of Black History Month.
For more than a decade, I’ve gone over old newspapers of Little Rock, looking for burial information of the town’s Black residents, just to make information available to family and future researchers. I’ve been contacted, sometimes years after, thanking me for helping them complete their family histories. Just before last Thanksgiving, a family was able to complete one generation’s information and reach beyond to the previous one.
I’ve also bought old photos and returned them to family.
In my research, I’ve found references to a dual primary voting system in some southern states, with a separate vote in Democratic (Dixiecrat) primaries for non-white voters. This was actually a compromise. Formerly, Black voters had no say at all in a party’s primary elections. I doubt the result of the Black primary carried much weight in determining the party’s candidates, but it was a step. I may do a diary about it later this month.
I’ve done diaries about Black artists: Robert Sheldon Duncan, Edmonia Lewis, and Henry Ossawa Tanner. I did a diary about activist Rev. Joe Knox, one of the Elaine 12. And I asked for help locating the family and the final resting place of a blacksmith in Virginia, John Ellis. But one of the saddest was the story of The Wrightsville Twenty-one.
The boys who died at Wrightsville were victimized by Jim Crow laws long before the tragic fire, which is how they ended up at Wrightsville. Read their story.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I regret that I have to share this day between two groups worthy of recognition, but I do want to note that February 1 is celebrated worldwide annually as World Hijab Day, a day to support Muslim women who choose to wear the hijab. Theirs are mostly small stories, such as women discriminated against in employment for wearing a hijab at work, women forced to remove their hijab for booking photos or other official identification,and women subjected to attack by strangers in public places because the hijab identifies them as practicing Muslims. Many days have to share calendar space, and this is one example.
This is an open thread. What small stories—small histories—in the bigger picture of Black history speak to you?
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/1/2300606/-Street-Prophets-Coffee-Hour-The-small-histories-for-Black-History-Month-February-1-World-Hijab-Day?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
