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27 unusual facts about African American


1958 Tangerine Bowl

Most notable because the Buffalo Bulls unanimously voted to decline a bid to the game (eventually filled by Missouri Valley) when they were notified that the team's two black players would not be allowed to play in the game.

Alpinia galanga

Under the names 'Chewing John', 'Little John to Chew', and 'Court Case Root', it is used in African American folk medicine and hoodoo folk magic.

Benedict T. Viviano

In a city of French foundation but mainly German population with a strong African American minority, his family belonged to the city's community of Italian people, itself divided into Lombards and Sicilians.

Bobino

On April 8, 1975 Josephine Baker, the African American superstar of France who had appeared at Bobino beginning in the 1920s, gave her last performance there at the age of 68.

Boyd Vance

Boyd Vance (July 9, 1957 – April 9, 2005) was an African American stage actor, director and producer in Austin, Texas.

Connie Bea Hope

In the early years, Payton, an African American, did not appear on camera unless her hands slipped into the shot while setting up or removing utensils.

Ellis Haizlip

Ellis Haizlip (c. 1930 - January 25, 1991) was an African American theater and television producer.

Feelin' the Spirit

Consisting purely of jazz versions of African American spirituals, it is one of a series of theme records recorded by the guitarist in 1962.

Fontbonne University

Through the late-1960s student protest movement left Fontbonne mostly untouched, in October 1970 black female students seized the Fontbonne library to demand more African American students and teachers, and a role in shaping courses and cultural programming.

Greenbrier County, West Virginia

One of the heroic defenders of Fort Donnally was an African American slave named Dick Pointer.

Holt Collier National Wildlife Refuge

Holt Collier National Wildlife Refuge is the only refuge to be named in honor of an African American.

Jefferson County, West Virginia

The racial makeup of the county was 91.02% White, 6.09% Black or African American, 0.60% Asian, 0.28% Native American, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 0.60% from other races, and 1.37% from two or more races.

John S. Hunt, II

The new law, which enforced the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution led to the registration of large numbers of African-American voters throughout the Deep South.

KPSR-LP

KPSR-LP is Modesto's only true Urban formatted radio station playing Hip Hop, R&B, Old School, Classic soul and Gospel music, catering to the mainstream and adult audiences in the relatively demographically small African American community.

Lackey, Virginia

During World War I, the properties of many primarily African American landowners along the former Yorktown-Williamsburg Road were taken to create a military reservation now known as Naval Weapons Station Yorktown.

Look to the Lilies

Based on both the novel and film versions of Lilies of the Field, it tells the story of a group of German nuns, headed by a determined, dauntless Mother Superior, who manage to get an African American itinerant handyman/jack-of-all-trades named Homer Smith to build a chapel for the New Mexico community in which they live, despite not having money to pay him.

Midnight Ramble

A midnight ramble was a segregation-era midnight showing of films for an African American audience, often in a cinema where, under Jim Crow laws they would never have been admitted at other times.

Natrona County, Wyoming

92.8% were White, 1.0% Native American, 0.9% Black or African American, 0.7% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 2.2% of some other race and 2.4% of two or more races.

New Paradigm Broadcast Network

NPBN features shows created for African-American and Latino audiences that are “positive, affirming, and empowering.”

Paul Cuffe Farm

Cuffe was a prominent farmer and merchant of African American and Native American ancestry.

Putnam County, West Virginia

The racial makeup of the county was 97.97% White, 0.56% Black or African American, 0.16% Native American, 0.58% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.13% from other races, and 0.59% from two or more races.

Ron Bean

Though Bean was a white Republican and Tarver an African American Democrat, the two found that they could work together and became close friends.

Ruth Batson

While representing the NAACP in local, regional and national capacities, her most renowned accomplishment occurred in the early 1960s when she led the challenge to the Boston Public School system for educational equality for African American students in Boston.

St. Mary's County, Maryland

The racial makeup of the county was 81.57% White, 13.92% African American, 0.34% Native American, 1.80% Asian, 0.07% Pacific Islander, 0.61% from other races, and 1.68% from two or more races.

Supermodel of the World

African-American actress/comedienne LaWanda Page (best known as Aunt Esther on the television series Sanford and Son) was featured in spoken word clips on several album tracks, though she is heard most notably on the hit single "Supermodel (You Better Work)".

WBLK

Contrary to popular belief, despite WBLK's format and target audience, its call letters do not stand for the word "BLacK" per se; rather, they are a tribute to Benjamin L. Kulick, who was a major financial backer of the station when it first went on the air.

West Rutland, Vermont

The racial makeup of the town was 67.6% White, 24.4% African American, 0.1% Native American, 1.7% Asian, 0.04% are Pacific Islander, 0.04% from other races, and 0.7% from two or more races.


8th of November

The intro mentions that Harris was "the guy that gave Big Kenny his top hat", and that he was among the wounded who were saved by Army medic Lawrence Joel, the first living African American to receive the Medal of Honor since the Spanish-American War of 1898.

Aldgate

In 1773 Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley, the first book by an African American was published in Aldgate after her owners could not find a publisher in Boston, Massachusetts.

Barbara Jordan Health Policy Scholars

The program brings talented African American, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander college seniors and recent graduates to Washington, D.C., where they are placed in congressional offices and learn about health policy.

Barbara M. Watson

Barbara M. Watson was born in New York City on November 5, 1918, the daughter of James S. Watson, the first black judge elected in New York State, and his wife, Violet Lopez Wilson, one of the founders of the National Council of Negro Women.

Behavior Cemetery

The African American cemetery is believed to date to before the American Civil War although the earliest marker is dated to the late 19th century.

Brackettville, Texas

Demographically, Brackettville had a larger proportion of Black Seminoles (people of mixed African American and Seminole ancestry, who originated in Florida) than the rest of West Texas, as they had been recruited by the US to act as scouts for the Buffalo Soldiers and settled with their families in the town.

Condredge Holloway

Dorothy was hired to work at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville in 1962, becoming the first African American employee of NASA.

Dink's Song

The first historical record of the song was by ethnomusicologist John Lomax in 1908, who recorded it as sung by an African American woman called Dink, as she washed her man's clothes in a tent camp of migratory levee-builders on the bank of the Brazos River, a few miles from College Station, Texas and Texas A&M College.

Dublin Evening Mail

Halpine was among other things the private secretary to P. T. Barnum, became a prominent journalist with the New York Times, a decorated soldier in the 69th New York Volunteer Infantry and in the Irish Brigade (where his letters, sent as "Private Myles O'Reilly", to the media defending the union became famous), and a key figure in the creation of the United States Army's first African American regiment.

First Church of Windsor

Joseph H. Rainey (1832-1877) was the first African American person to serve in the United States House of Representatives and the second black person to serve in the United States Congress.

George H. Noonan

Among Noonan's backers was George B. Jackson, an African-American businessman called the "wealthiest black in Texas" in the second half of the 19th century.

Hancock County, Tennessee

98.0% were White, 0.4% Black or African American, 0.3% Native American, 0.1% Asian, 0.1% of some other race and 1.1% of two or more races.

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park

Subsequent rulings known as Jim Crow Laws led other African American leaders such as Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois to hold the second Niagara Movement (an early form of the NAACP) conference at the school in 1906 to discuss ways to peacefully combat legalized discrimination and segregation.

Highlights from Porgy and Bess

While the opera was performed by an all-African American singing cast, the 1935 album featured mostly white opera singers attempting singing the Gullah-influenced words and music.

Hudson Middle School

The ethnic makeup of the school is 35.9% White, non-Hispanic, 38.1% Hispanic, 11.7% African American, 10.7% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 1% Native American.

Human rights in South Korea

When Hines Ward, who is of mixed Korean and African American heritage, earned MVP honors in Super Bowl XL, it sparked a debate in Korean society about the treatment mixed children receive.

John L. Thompson

John Lay Thompson (b. April 3, 1869, Grand River Township, Decatur County, Iowa - d. 1930) was an Iowa journalist and businessman who played a key role in the early history of the African American newspaper the Iowa Bystander.

John S. Watson Institute for Public Policy

The Institute is named after New Jersey Assemblyman John S. Watson, the first African American to serve as the state's Chairman of the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Kennell Jackson Jr.

Kennell Jackson (born on March 19, 1941, in Farmville, Virginia - died November 21, 2005) was an African American expert in East Africa and African American cultural history.

L'Enfant Plaza

The name of the park commemorates Benjamin Banneker, a free African American astronomer and author who in 1791 assisted in the initial survey of the boundaries of the District of Columbia.

Lyudmila Shemchuk

She was to have sung the title role in the first ever staged performance of Mussorgsky’s incomplete opera Salammbô (in the version revised and edited by Zoltán Peskó) in March 1983 at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, but unforeseen problems in obtaining an exit visa meant that she had to be replaced at a very late stage by the African American soprano Annabelle Bernard of the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Marion Meadows

Marion Meadows is an American Saxophonist, composer, and smooth jazz recording artist of Native American, African American and Caucasian descent.

Mary Allen Seminary

Mary Allen Seminary (later called Mary Allen Junior College) was the first black women's college in the state of Texas.

Park County, Wyoming

95.6% were White, 0.6% Native American, 0.6% Asian, 0.2% Black or African American, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 1.4% of some other race and 1.6% of two or more races.

Research Experiences for Undergraduates

Such programs usually focus on targeting women and underrepresented minorities (e.g., African Americans, Mexican Americans, Native Americans and mainland Puerto Ricans).

Robertsport

In the early 19th century, a colony of African American freed slaves settled the site, which was then part of the Vai territory.

San Juan Hill, Manhattan

In addition to the significant African American community, there was also an Afro-Caribbean community there, which has left its traces in Bye-ya and Bemsha Swing compositions of Thelonious Monk, co-written much later with Denzil Best, who also grew up in this neighborhood.

Scott County, Virginia

97.9% were White, 0.6% Black or African American, 0.2% Native American, 0.2% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 0.4% of some other race and 0.7 of two or more races.

Sommore

Sommore and fellow African American female comedians Mo'Nique, Laura Hayes, and Adele Givens were the stars on the The Queens of Comedy tour, which was filmed and subsequently aired on Showtime and released on DVD.

Sophia Danenberg

Sophia Danenberg (born 1972) is an American mountain climber best known as the first African American and the first black woman to climb to the summit of Mount Everest, the world's tallest mountain.

St. Wenceslaus in Baltimore

In recent years, the ethnic character of St. Wenceslaus parish has undergone a gradual change from a majority Czech parish to one that is multicultural and multiracial, first as many Poles and Lithuanians moved into the neighborhood, and then as the neighborhood shifted to having an African American majority.

Stewart County, Georgia

Before the American Civil War, planters depended on enslaved labor of thousands of African Americans to cultivate and process the cotton for market.

Student life at Brigham Young University

In February 2012, a YouTube video called "What do you know about black history?" of students at BYU surfaced, exemplifying some students' knowledge about Black History Month and African Americans in general.

Thaddeus von Clegg

The manufactured version we know today was invented in Macon, Georgia, by an African American named Alabama Vest, in the 1840s.

The Hazel Scott Show

The series ran during the summer of 1950, and is most notable for being the first U.S. network television series to be hosted by a African American woman.

The Monkey Jar

Left to sort out the issue is the school's African American principal, Robert Rees, who has only held the position a few months, and Coral Bryson the specialist in charge of Kai's Individualized Education Program.

Tikar people

In the PBS television program Finding Your Roots, African American former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice learned she shared maternal heritage with the Tikar.

Tina Benkiser

Robin Armstrong, an African American physician from Dickinson was the party vice chairman in the latter portion of Benkiser's term.

William D. Payne

Assemblyman Payne's Amistad legislation established the Amistad Commission to incorporate African American history and contributions into the K-12 curriculum in New Jersey schools and, the practice of racial profiling by law enforcement and all civil service employees has been criminalized in New Jersey by landmark legislation of which Assemblyman Payne was the lead sponsor.

Wolfe Perry

Additionally, he appeared in the controversial 1986 film Soul Man, which starred C. Thomas Howell as a Caucasian student who uses medication to disguise himself as an African American and obtain a Harvard Law School scholarship intended for African American students.