Sad to remember that the days between Christmas and New Years have been some of the most violent in black history. Today, we share our grief, pain & hurt—both historically and in this present moment—with our Jewish family.
As the final night of Hanukkah begins, and the lights are kindled in homes and synagogues across the world, we light candles of love, solidarity and justice.
We recommit ourselves to live love and lift the cause of truth, justice and love until freedom and liberation from racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, Islamophobia and hate itself truly comes.
December 24, 1865: Months after the fall of the Confederacy and the end of slavery, several veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club in Pulaski, Tenn., called the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
Its first priority, declared in its creed, was "to protect the weak, the innocent, & the defenseless from the indignities, wrongs, and outrages of the lawless, the violent, & the brutal." In reality, the Klan terrorized & killed former slaves, sympathetic whites & immigrants.
December 25, 1875: Mississippi state senator Charles Caldwell was ambushed by a mob of white men in Clinton, Miss. Caldwell told the mob, "Remember when you kill me, you kill a gentleman and a brave man. Never say you killed a coward."
Then the mob riddled him with bullets. The next day, a mob of white men came from Vicksburg, Miss., to curse and taunt the dead body in front of his widow and family.
December 25, 1951: On their 25th anniversary, NAACP leader Harry T. Moore and his wife, Harriette Vyda Simms Moore, were killed in Mims, Fla., when a bomb planted beneath their home exploded.
It was the first of dozens of bombings in Florida against African-American families. During his time with the NAACP, Harry Moore investigated racial killings and successfully boosted African-American voting.
Dec. 26, 1956: After the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the integration of city buses in Montgomery, Ala., Fred Shuttlesworth and others challenged the law in Birmingham, Ala. He boarded the bus hours after his own home was bombed.
Months later, a white mob severely beat Shuttlesworth after he tried to enroll his daughters into the all-white school in Birmingham. In 1963, Shuttlesworth joined forces with Martin Luther King Jr. to finally break down the walls of segregation in Birmingham.
Dec. 29, 1890: U.S. Calvary open fire on the Lakota at Wounded Knee killing 300 Lakota children, women and men. After the massacre at Wounded Knee, 20 of the soldiers are awarded medals of honor.
