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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The Black man in this jail cell has been locked up for refusing to sign a labor contract. Under the Black Codes he is considered a vagrant. Freedpeople had to sign labor contracts to work for whites...
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There was little or no universal or public education in the Antebellum South. Only wealthy elites went to school, and most poor whites were illiterate. They remained ignorant of politics at the...
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The Freedmen’s Bureau helped create labor contracts that were supposed to be fair to both parties, but in many cases established conditions not much better than slavery. This system became known as...
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Like most former Confederates, this landowner resents the authority of U.S. Army officers and the Freedmen’s Bureau. Fearful that their agricultural economy would collapse without the free labor of...
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The wife of the jailed freedman has come to the jail to support her husband in his contract dispute with the white landowner. In 1865 and 1866, following the example of Northern Blacks, freedpeople in...
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The growth of Black Codes in the South made it clear that freedpeople needed the support and protection of the federal government. On March 3, 1865 Congress established the Bureau of Refugees...
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This scene was shot inside the Orangeburg County Jail, also known as the Pink Palace, in Orangeburg, South Carolina. The jail was built in 1860 with offices on the first floor and cells for prisoners...
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Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune is hailed as one of the most influential African American educators and Civil Rights figures, during the first half of the 20th century. Born on a cotton farm in Mayesville, SC...
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Students will understand the importance of the creation of Black History Month and the contributions of African Americans in the United States and the world.
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Orphaned at the age of six, Maude Callen, became an “Angel in Twilight” to many as she singlehandedly brought health care to a poverty-stricken community. After becoming orphaned, Maude went to live...
