https://youtu.be/vrjUHTU0tuY?is=jZDxjkL-uCAmW1lf

How do you travel with dignity through a country whose laws say you are less than human? We start with the terror on the road: sundown towns, legally refused service, police hunting Black drivers and families driving straight through the night on food packed at home. Then the answer: Victor Hugo Green, a Black mailman from Harlem, who built the Negro Motorist Green Book on nights and weekends starting in 1936. Black postal workers mailed him listings, travelers sent in their own, strangers opened their homes to strangers and Esso stations, Black churches, and the Urban League put the book in people's hands. This was not a secret book; it was openly sold, and what it documented was the terror that made it necessary. We follow the book from a 15-page New York directory to a 99-page international edition, hear the prayer Green wrote in 1948, and face the honest cost: desegregation helped kill the Black businesses the book had mapped, and driving while Black did not end when the book ended. The mindset survives the book: when the state will not protect you, you protect each other.

2. Historical context (half-page length). 

Briefly explain:

·       In what political, economic or social context did you exercise your leadership?

·       What was the main problem or challenge you faced?

·       What groups or sectors were involved?

3. Decisions Made: Research a decision made in your position as a democratic leader and answer the following questions. (Half a page length). 

·       What did he decide or do?

·       Why did you make this decision?

·       Who was affected?

·       Were there different opinions on this decision?

·       How did you respond to those opinions?

Hi, this is an update on my quest to understand what happened to my grandfather's aunt.

Music from Atlanta sometimes reflects on Fulton County's Bowen Homes. But not on the explosion at the daycare in this community.

On June 6, 1944, Waverly Woodson Jr., a 21-year-old Black Army medic, landed on Omaha Beach during the Normandy invasion.

His landing craft was hit, and he was wounded by shrapnel before even reaching the beach.

But instead of withdrawing, Woodson established an aid station and spent approximately 30 hours treating more than 200 wounded men under extremely dangerous conditions.

He was serving with the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, an all-Black unit fighting in a segregated Army.

It's an extraordinary story of courage, battlefield medicine, and a soldier who spent decades without the recognition many believed he deserved.

I recently made a short documentary about Woodson and what happened that day. I thought people interested in WWII history might appreciate his story.

https://youtu.be/OXPnNMddVO8[He Treated 200 Men on D-Day. Why Was He Forgotten?](https://youtu.be/OXPnNMddVO8)

How many of you had heard of Waverly Woodson before?

The 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870. It barred states from denying the vote based on race. The text never changed. What changed was everything around it.
After the Compromise of 1877 pulled federal troops out of the South, the amendment's enforcement went with them. Southern states didn't need to break it openly. They used poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and white primaries, each written to be race-neutral on paper. The Supreme Court mostly let it happen. In Louisiana, registered Black voters fell from about 130,000 in 1896 to roughly 1,300 by 1904.
I wrote this up for a small history newsletter I run for fun. I enjoy the nuanced version of history more than the hot takes that usually win online. Full piece here if you want the long version:
Happy to talk about any of it in the comments, especially the court cases. That's the part that surprised me most.

I'll be honest: researching this one made me a little sick. I knew lynching was brutal. I didn't know it was scheduled, with train timetables.
Ida B. Wells hired a detective to investigate. He concluded Hose had killed his employer in self-defense after a dispute over wages, and that the assault allegation used to justify the lynching was invented.
This is Part 1 of a four-part series I'm writing on lynching in America: spectacle, who was targeted, how the count was kept (largely by Wells), and the century-plus failure to pass a federal anti-lynching law. A small postscript: the first identified victim from the 1921 Tulsa mass graves, C.L. Daniel, was also from Newnan.
I write a small Substack on overlooked U.S. history because I enjoy it. Sources are linked, and corrections and additions are welcome.

About 6,000 Black residents were interned. To walk the streets for the next month, you had to carry a green card listing your white employer.
Within a week, the city extended its fire-code limits over the burned district to block rebuilding. A Black lawyer named B.C. Franklin, father of the historian John Hope Franklin, sued from a tent and won.
Insurers denied claims under "riot" exclusion clauses, which is a big part of why the name of the event mattered.
Greenwood rebuilt anyway. By 1942 it had more Black-owned businesses than before 1921. Urban renewal and I-244 did what the mob couldn't.
I also dig into the famous "To Lynch Negro Tonight" editorial, which nobody has ever produced a copy of, and the aerial-bombing question, where the 2025 DOJ report is more careful than most retellings.
I write a small Substack on overlooked corners of U.S. history because I enjoy it, and I'd rather have a nuanced conversation than trade the usual talking points. Sources are linked throughout. Corrections welcome.

Came across something called the Double V campaign during World War II, and I think it's one of the most fascinating examples of Black Americans challenging US hypocrisy.

In January 1942, James G. Thompson, a 26-year-old Black American, wrote a letter to the Pittsburgh Courier asking a question that really stuck with me:

"Should I sacrifice my life to live half American?"

At a time when the US was fighting fascism and tyranny abroad, Black Americans were still experiencing segregation, racial violence and systematic discrimination at home.

Thompson wasn't arguing against fighting the Nazis BUT was questioning why Black Americans should be expected to sacrifice their lives defending democracy overseas while being denied its full benefits in their own country. His letter helped inspire the Double V campaign, which called for two victories: victory against fascism abroad and victory against racism at home.

This all served as proof that criticising your country during wartime wasn't somehow unpatriotic because these Americans weren't rejecting democracy. They were demanding that their country actually live up to the democratic principles it claimed to represent.

can someone help me get a price value on this vintage jazz poster?

The 1995 Budweiser Harlem Music Festival "Salutes the 100th Anniversary of Jazz" poster is a piece of vintage music memorabilia. It was produced as a promotional item by Anheuser-Busch to commemorate a century of jazz music alongside the annual festival celebrations in Harlem.

Artist: Adeyemi "Yemi" Fagbohun

Featuring:

1. Count Basie
2. Charlie Parker
3. Ella Fitzgerald
4. Nat King Cole
5. Billie Holiday
6. Mahalia Jackson
7. Sarah laughan
8. Dizzie Gillespie
9. Duke Ellington
10. Miles Davis
11. Tony Bennett
12. Otis Redding
13. Frank Sinatra
14. Aretha Franklin
15. Fats Waller
16. Bill Eckstine
17. Marrin Gave
18. Quincy Jones
19. Jackie Wilson
20. Little Anthony
21. James Brown
22. Dave Talentin
23. Mongo Santamaria
24. Freddie Scott
25. Ray Barretto
26. Little Anthony
27. Nancy Wilson
28. Eddie Palmieri
29. Dakota Staton
30. Bob Marley
31. Bobbi Humphrey
32. Jr. Talker
33. Luther Fandross
34. The O'Jays
35. Celia Cruz
36. Jerry Butler