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North America's 1st Black Town?
Editor’s Note: This column was first published on Dec. 3, 2012. Amazing Fact About the Negro No. 8: What was the first black town in North America? As I mentioned in my column about Juan Garrido, the first documented African to land in what is now the United States, in 1513, as a student I…
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Which Slave Wrote His Way Out of Slavery?
(The Root) — Amazing Fact About the Negro No. 7: Which slave literally wrote his way to freedom? From the time when they first landed in Florida in the early 1500s, African Americans did their best to run away from the inhumane conditions of slavery. Over the course of slavery in the United States between…
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Who Was the 1st Black to Explore the West?
(The Root) — Amazing Fact About the Negro No. 6: Who was the first black explorer of the North American Southwest? The first enslaved African to arrive in Florida whom we can document by name was a black man named Esteban. And, long before the explorers Lewis and Clark crossed the continent, he would traverse…
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Who Was Africa's 1st Ambassador to Europe?
(The Root) — Amazing Fact About the Negro No. 5: Who was Africa’s first ambassador to Europe? Most of us assume that the flow of human beings, ideas, trade and information between Europe and Africa was one-way, and that Africans were a “primitive” people outside of time, living in ignorance and isolation until Portuguese navigators…
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North America's 1st Black President?
(The Root) — Amazing Fact About the Negro No. 4: Who was the first black president in North America? That would be Barack Obama, right? While most of us have assumed this, and while this has been widely reported in the media, it turns out that this is not true. As a matter of fact,…
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Who Was the First Black Saint?
Editor’s Note: For those who are wondering about the retro title of this black history series, please take a moment to learn about historian Joel A. Rogers, author of the 1934 book 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro With Complete Proof, to whom these “amazing facts” are an homage. (The Root) — Amazing Fact About…
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Who Was the First African American?
(The Root) — Amazing Fact About the Negro No. 2: Who was the first African to arrive in America? Like many of you, I was always told that the first Africans to arrive in what is now the United States were the “20 and odd” Africans who arrived as slaves in Jamestown, Va., from what…
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100 Amazing Facts About the Negro
(The Root) — In 1934, Joel Augustus Rogers, a highly regarded journalist in the black press, published a remarkable little book of 51 pages titled 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro With Complete Proof: A Short Cut to the World History of the Negro. I have been intrigued by this book, and by its author,…
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How Don Cornelius Got His Start
The Root’s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr., wrote this about Don Cornelius ––who died Wednesday morning at the age of 75 –in his book Life Upon These Shores: Don Cornelius badly wanted his own radio show, and he took dramatic steps to realize his dream. In 1966, the Chicago native left his steady job at…
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3 Women 'Red Tails' Left Out
Red Tails, the new George Lucas film depicting the valiant Tuskegee Airmen, reminds us of the often overlooked role of African Americans in World War II and their noble achievements. While much has been written about the airmen, very few of us understand how important three women were to their existence. And this is one…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
