Obama Protects Site That Played Major Role in American Slave History

Virginia’s Fort Monroe, where Dutch traders first brought Africans, is set to become national monument

2011-11-01

Darlene Superville The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama wants to protect a deactivated Army fort in Virginia's Tidewater area that played an important role in the nation's slave history. Read the complete article

Marine Corps to Teach Story of First Black Marines

Staunchly traditional military branch is looking to increase diversity

2011-10-24

Julie Watson The Associated Press

OCEANSIDE, Calif. (AP) -- Oscar Culp does not like to remember. His mind has erased the harshest details. But the pain still stings for the 87-year-old WWII veteran, who endured boot camp in a snake-infested North Carolina swampland as one of the first blacks admitted to the Marine Corps. Read the complete article

Oregon Senators Urge Panetta to Expedite Medal of Honor for Henry Lincoln Johnson

WWI Hellfighter was denied recognition because he was African American

2011-10-05

Helen Silvis Of The Skanner News

Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkeley have sent a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, asking him to award the Medal of Honor to WWI war hero Henry Lincoln Johnson. They have also asked Panetta to speed up the process, which normally takes two years. Read the complete article

City Where Civil War Began Getting MLK Memorial

Citizens committee in Charleston to decide design of monument

2011-09-28

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) -- The city where the Civil War began is getting a memorial to slain civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Read the complete article

Marcus Garvey Pardon Rejected by White House

Legal experts and others who have studied the Garvey case have long concluded that he was framed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and wrongfully convicted

2011-09-18

Tony Best, Los Angeles Sentinel

A bid to secure a posthumous presidential pardon for Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jamaica's first national hero, has been rejected out of hand by the Barack Obama White House in Washington. Read the complete article

Cherokees Expel Descendants of Slaves from Tribe

The 300,000-member tribe is the biggest in Oklahoma, although many of its members live elsewhere

2011-09-11

Justin Juozapavicius The Associated Press

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- One of the nation's largest American Indian tribes has sent letters to about 2,800 descendants of slaves once owned by its members, revoking their citizenship and cutting their medical care, food stipends, low-income homeowners' assistance and other services. Read the complete article

Guatemala Syphillis Experiment: Panel Reveals New Details

The Guatemala experiments are already considered one of the darker episodes of medical research in U.S. history, but panel members say new information shows the researchers were unusually unethical

2011-09-05

Mike Stobbe AP Medical Writer

A presidential panel last week disclosed shocking new details of U.S. medical experiments done in Guatemala in the 1940s, including a decision to re-infect a dying woman in a syphilis study. Read the complete article

Malcolm X Scholar Manning Marable Dies at 60

Marable's latest book, "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention," will be released today

2011-04-04

CRISTIAN SALAZAR The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) -- Manning Marable, an influential historian whose forthcoming Malcolm X biography could revise perceptions of the slain civil rights leader, died Friday, just days before the book described as his life's work was to be released. He was 60. Read the complete article

Students Find Stories Buried in Forgotten Graves

The cemetery near Soapstone Baptist Church in the Liberia a community settled by freed slaves in the 1800s was discovered about four years ago by surveyors working on the church property

2011-03-06

ANNA SIMON The Greenville News

CLEMSON, S.C. (AP) -- Clemson University anthropology students will be scratching below the surface of Upstate history in a northern Pickens County cemetery where former slaves were buried and, until recently, forgotten. Read the complete article

Found: The Black Declaration of Independence? Rare Anti-Slavery Document Discovered

2011-03-05

By ZINIE CHEN SAMPSON of The Associated Press

The University of Virginia has acquired a rare first edition of an 1829 anti-slavery manifesto that was considered a rallying cry for black Americans and a major threat to Southern leaders, who worked vigorously to ban it. Read the complete article