Black History Month is celebrated every February to honor the achievements of African Americans who have shaped American history. Historian Carter G. Woodson hoped to raise awareness of African American's contributions to civilization by establishing Negro History Week. The event was first celebrated during a week in February 1926 that included both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass' birthdays. The week was later expanded to a month in 1976 during the United States bicentennial.
PHOTO: On March 20, 1969, Black hospital workers at the Medical College of South Carolina in Charleston went on strike to protest the firing of twelve employees and to call for higher wages and union recognition.
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“L” is for Longshoreman’s Protective Union Association. Chartered in 1869, the Longshoreman’s Protective Union Association [LPUA] established the legacy of a strong union presence, comprised almost...
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This row of cabins provided housing for slaves on the McLeod Plantation in Charleston County. The photograph was taken in the 1930s. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
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The board and batten siding on this slave cabin on the Arundel Plantation in Georgetown County was promoted as an efficient form of house construction from 1850 onward, and is widely seen in...
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“S” is for Sellers, Cleveland Louis, Jr. [b. 1944]. Civil rights activist. Educator. Sellers attended Howard University where he met several student activists, including Stokely Carmichael—later...
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“H” is for Hinton, James Miles [1891-1970]. Clergyman, businessman, civil rights leader. A native North Carolinian, Hinton began his business career in Augusta with the black-owned Pilgrim Health and...
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“A” is for African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. The A.M.E. Zion church is on of the seventh largest black denominations. It had its beginnings in New York in the early 19th century and by the...
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"Family Worship in a Plantation in South Carolina," is the title given to this sketch, printed in the "Illustrated London News," December 5, 1863. The article described the scene as having taken place...
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The Negro Travelers’ Green Book began publication in 1936. The book offered “Assured Protection for the Negro Traveler”. The publisher-owner Victor Green began the idea from personal experiences while...
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This one-room school on Coosaw Island was taught by a Penn School graduate in the 1920s. A Penn School faculty member wrote a note on the back of the photograph, "It is to such conditions that our...
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Booker T. Washington High School, Class of 1933, seated on the lawn in front of the main entrance to the school. Founded in 1916, the school was, until its closing in 1974, the hub of the separate...
