X-Nico

28 unusual facts about African American


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.

Banneker Recreation Center

Banneker Recreation Center is an historic structure located in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The building was built in 1934 and was named for Benjamin Banneker, a free African American who assisted in the survey of boundaries of the original District of Columba in 1791.

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.

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.

Diddley bow

It was traditionally considered a starter or children's instrument in the Deep South, especially in the African American community and is rarely heard outside the rural South, but it may have been influenced to some degree by West African instruments.

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.

Give Love on Christmas Day

In a review of the The Jackson 5 Christmas Album, Lynn Norment of the African American-orientated magazine Ebony described Michael Jackson's vocals on the track—along with the songs "The Little Drummer Boy", "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" and "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"—as sounding "angelic".

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.

Holt Collier National Wildlife Refuge

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

J. B. Long

Long began recording African American groups after holding a local talent contest for black musicians at the nearby Old Central Warehouse in June 1934.

John S. Hunt, II

Garrett claimed after the primary that Hunt had received 93.1 percent of the votes of African Americans in nine selected precincts throughout the district, which then embraced a third of the state.

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.

PBA Bowling Tour: 1986 Season

Late in the season at the Brunswick Memorial World Open, George Branham III made history by becoming the first African American to win a national PBA Tour title.

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.

Reginald Ruggles Gates

That stated he believed African Americans to be mentally inferior and attempted to prove this.

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.

Shōko Ieda

However, her descriptions of the African American community were accused of making AIDS seem "alien" and "distant" to her Japanese target audience.

St. Johnsbury, Vermont

The racial makeup of the town was 96.5% White, 0.5% African American, 0.7% Native American, 0.6% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.2% from other races, and 1.5% from two or more races.

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.


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.

Alexander Darnes

Alexander H. Darnes (c.1840 - February 11, 1894) was an African American who was born into slavery in St. Augustine, Florida and became the first black doctor in Jacksonville, Florida.

American Blackout

The film focuses heavily on McKinney, and claims that her 2002 loss in a Democratic primary to Denise Majette (who, like McKinney, is African-American) was part of an effort to disenfranchise minority voters.

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.

Brooker and Clayton's Georgia Minstrels

Brooker and Clayton's Georgia Minstrels was the first successful African American blackface minstrel troupe.

Columbia University School of Social Work

Winona Cargile Alexander (1893-1984), a founder of Delta Sigma Theta, in 1915 was the first African American accepted to the New York School of Philanthropy.

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.

Corbin, KY Micropolitan Statistical Area

The racial makeup of the μSA was 98.37% White, 0.34% Black or African American, 0.23% Native American, 0.20% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.09% from other races, and 0.76% from two or more races.

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.

Elmendorf Reformed Church

The Church's original burying ground for its African American congregants was discovered in 2008 at the 126th Street Depot of the MTA Regional Bus Operations when body parts were found upon digging at the location.

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.

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.

Fred Bridges

His parents Thomas Jones and Clara Law moved to Detroit as part of the Great Migration.

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.

Greenbrier County, West Virginia

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

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.

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.

James Boisclair

James Boisclair was an African American gold miner who achieved notable fame and success during the Georgia Gold Rush.

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.

Jones Lake State Park

Jones Lake State Park was opened in 1939 during the segregation era as a state park for the use of African Americans.

Leo Mintz

By about 1950, Mintz noticed an increase in the number of white teenagers sifting through his boxes, listening and dancing to rhythm and blues records, such as those by Ruth Brown, Wynonie Harris and Fats Domino, which had been marketed to African Americans.

Lloyd McClendon

At the time of his hiring, he became the first African American manager or head coach of any of Pittsburgh's three major sports teams, preceding the Steelers hiring of Mike Tomlin by six years.

Mary Allen Seminary

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

Natrona County, Wyoming

The racial makeup of the county was 94.15% White, 0.76% Black or African American, 1.03% Native American, 0.42% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 1.92% from other races, and 1.68% from two or more races.

Okfuskee County, Oklahoma

64.4% were White, 19.7% Native American, 8.3% Black or African American, 0.2% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 0.8% of some other race and 6.5% of two or more races.

Ossian B. Hart

He appointed Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs as Florida's first African American Superintendent of Public Instruction.

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.

Paul Cuffe Farm

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

Register of the Treasury

Four of the five African Americans whose signatures have appeared on U.S. currency were Registrars of the Treasury (Blanche K. Bruce, Judson W. Lyons, William T. Vernon and James C. Napier).

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).

Robert E. Powell

In 1996, he was unseated by his former political ally, Abe E. Pierce, III, the president of the Ouachita Parish Police Jury and the first African American to fill the mayoralty in Monroe.

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.

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.

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.

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 Crests

On November 12, 2013, JT Carter was honored by the Pennsylvania State House, Speaker of the House Sam Smith, and PA State Representative Rosemary M Brown, for his lifetime in the music industry and for being the first African American to form an interracial vocal group in America.

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.

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.